The CEO of a company that makes high-end backpacks said he and his employees have received threats after reports he contacted a police tip l
Peter Dering, the founder and CEO of San Francisco-based company Peak Design, issued a statement Friday after he told the New York Times in a report published on December 5, as soon as he saw photos of the bag, he contacted police. Dering also told the Times if police were to ask for help he would “check with his general counsel about what information he could release without violating the company’s privacy guidelines.”
Dering had told the Times in the December 5 story the person at the tip line who answered his call said there were “hundreds” of calls identifying the gray bag worn by alleged gunman Luigi Mangione as a Peak Design item.
Still, some have taken to social media to call Dering a “snitch.” One TikTok user suggested Peak Design bag owners remove the serial tags on their bags and others have suggested returning bags.
It is standard for a company to share customer information in response to a court order or subpoena, according to Greg Ewing, a data privacy attorney in Washington, DC.
Are companies violating consumer privacy?
Amid data and privacy concerns, users have questioned what tracking serial numbers means for customers re-selling products or buying secondhand.
“What if somebody gave this to me as a gift and now I’m going to jail because they committed a crime, because you wanted to tell somebody that was my backpack? That is very scary,” one TikTok user posted to the social media platform.
Ewing said such a scenario is possible. The issue is companies are limited by the data they collect and, in the case of Peak Design, data is voluntarily registered. If a product is sold and not re-registered, information could be tracked to whoever first made the purchase.
Another TikTok user posted in a video, “nobody wants you to save the day.” The user questioned what information the company has access to.
“You didn’t have to tell anybody about anything,” the user said.
