Registering Internet Identifiers – Revised

Florida Statute 943.0435(4)(e)1 requires all registered offenders to register email addresses and internet identifiers with their local jurisdiction within 48 hours of initial use.  The internet identifiers are your username (moniker, designation, screen name, or other name used for self-identification)  and the software, website, or app that are being used. 

Due to the vagueness of the requirement relative to the broadness of account needs through the internet, litigation was pursued to overturn this requirement.  

While the language of the statute remains unchanged, the court ruling provided some clarity on what is required to register and what is not required.

If you are using the internet in any capacity where you will be communicating directly with another user (one on one) that account, website, app and/or software is required to be registered within 48 hours of its first use.  

To clarify, the Judge cited a quote from the FDLE Commissioner of the time saying “the requirement to register an internet identifier is triggered only by user to user communication.”

Exceptions to this requirement are commerce, banking, government, medical and like accounts.

If you have access to the FDLE Cyber Communication System, you can update internet identifiers regularly on that site.  

Questions about what should be and should not be registered arise regularly and understandably.  

SOURCE:  

A memo from the Florida Justice Institute:

To: All Individuals Required to Register with the Florida Sexual Offender/Predator Registry.

As you probably know, the Florida sexual offender/predator registration laws require that, within 48 hours after using an “Internet identifier,” you must register that identifier with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). “Internet identifier” is defined as “any designation, moniker, screen name, username, or other name used for self-identification to send or receive social Internet communication.”
As a result of a lawsuit, on September 21, 2018, a federal judge in the Northern District of Florida issued an Order explaining and interpreting the law, as follows:

First, the Order summarized four situations in which you do not have to register an identifier, stating: A username need not be registered based only on [1] a communication whose primary purpose is to facilitate a commercial transaction involving goods or services, or [2] a communication over a website whose primary purpose is the dissemination of news, or [3] a communication with a governmental entity. And a username need not be registered based only on [4] its use on a website or application that does not allow users to create web pages or profiles….

Second, the Order clarified that, in addition to the four above-listed exceptions, registrants only have to register Internet identifiers after they actually use an identifier to communicate over the Internet directly with another user. We interpret this to mean that you do not have to report an identifier if it is used just to browse a website, unless and until you actually use that identifier to communicate directly with another person. This is true even if your use of the identifier falls outside of the four exceptions noted above. Third, the Order prohibits the FDLE from making available to the public the identity of a registrant associated with any given email address or Internet identifier (although it can still give this information to law enforcement agencies). This means that if someone sends a public records request to the FDLE asking for all the identifiers and emails associated with a given registrant, or the identity of a registrant associated with a given email or identifier, the FDLE is not allowed to provide that  nformation. However, FDLE will still be permitted, as it has always been, to verify that an identifier is associated with a registrant (without identifying the specific registrant).

This is only a general description of the Order, which you can read in full at www.floridajusticeinstitute.org/order. There are also further requirements in the Internet identifier provisions not covered here, for which you should read Florida Statutes § 943.0435 and § 775.21 in full. If you need advice on how the statutes apply to you, you should consult your own attorney. If you are on probation, you may wish to consult with your probation officer as to whether any special conditions of probation restricting Internet use apply in your case. If you are arrested for violating the Internet identifier provisions, you are encouraged to raise the issues described in this notice with your criminal defense lawyer.