Even if everybody with a brain can look at the facts and say "well that's obviously a violation of rights" the court can happily say "nope there is some minor factual delta that means that we haven't explicitly ruled on this exact circumstance so how could a cop ever know that they were violating rights?"
Because the sharing of the photos with other people wasn't established by the evidence, the court was just ruling on whether the DA had violated the plaintiffs rights by transferring the data dump from the plaintiff's phone to the sheriff, and whether that violation was obvious/established enough from prior court rulings to revoke QI. It had nothing to do with sharing the photos themselves with anyone (the DA didn't know the data dump had the photos when he shared it).
I've come across compromising data over the years--and never have I referred to it in any way that would permit identification of the person. Either it warrants going to the police or it stays private, there's no in between.
Which is all just to say: don't talk to cops and don't agree to searches, even if you think dating one will help you get out of trouble.
Who do you call when you're being harassed by the people you're supposed to call when you're being harassed? ... Luckily for her, she had a cousin that was a 20-year NYPD veteran. Him and some other veterans cops went to "have a talk" with the younger cop. Problem solved, but it was a total nightmare for her.
The people who trust cops are the most at risk of this. Those who don’t know their rights or who are afraid to assert them are also at risk.
The people who have already internalized this statement are least at risk.
But we are all at risk when police are corrupt. And the fact that police who do these things still have jobs means that the number of corrupt officers is far larger than it should be.