Roku Number, ESPN Viewing History Not Protected Data: Ninth Cir.

ESPN Inc.'s sharing of an individual’s Roku Inc. device serial number and a list of the ESPN videos watched doesn’t violate federal video privacy law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed.

An individual’s streaming device ID number and videos watched isn’t personally identifiable information (PII) protected by the Video Privacy Protection Act, the appeals court held Nov. 29 (Eichenberger v. ESPN, Inc., 2017 BL 427074, 9th Cir., No. 15-35449, 11/29/17).

Under the statute, PII includes information that can be used to identify an individual, Judge Susan P. Graber wrote for the court. She agreed ...