NJ Lottery winners should be allowed to claim prize anonymously

There is a bill gaining traction in Trenton that would allow a lottery winner in New Jersey to claim their winnings anonymously. The bill would work to protect the privacy of these lottery winners in a world where information spreads way faster and privacy is not necessarily the easiest thing to come by. Michael Symons has a much more comprehensive piece about the bill that you can view here.

A great point was brought up by Assemblyman John Burzichelli. He said, "25 years ago, it was maybe a picture in the newspaper. That’s a whole different universe than what the electronic side of things are today.” He's absolutely right. In a world where your face can be seen by virtually anyone who owns a computer or smart device at anytime, you may have to resort to something like this:

It's one thing for extended members of your family or forgettable high school classmates to come out of the woodwork begging for money. But to have your name searchable on social media and search engines to find out as much about you as humanly possible is the frightening reality. In the age where doxing is becoming increasingly popular, otherwise known as the trend of searching for and publishing private or identifying information about a particular individual on the Internet, typically with malicious intent, these changes to the lottery anonymity laws are absolutely necessary. When the current guidelines were put in place, no one had any idea the world would look this way in 2019. The law needs to evolve much like we have evolved.

If this bill is passed, New Jersey would join Delaware, Kansas, Maryland, North Dakota, Ohio and South Carolina as the only states that offer full anonymity for lottery winners.

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