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posted by chromas on Thursday October 25 2018, @01:06AM   Printer-friendly
from the all-suspects-are-guilty dept.

Feds Order Google To Hand Over A Load Of Innocent Americans' Locations

Here's how it works: cops send Google specific coordinates and timezones within which crimes were committed. Then Google is asked to provide information on all users within those locations at those times, most likely including data on many innocent people. Those users could be Android phone owners, anyone running Google Maps or any individual running Google services on their cell, not just criminal suspects.

[...] "This fishing expedition infringes on the privacy rights of so many possible people who had the misfortune of being in an area where a crime is alleged to be committed," said Jerome Greco, staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society. "We should not allow for such broad access to the data of so many on the mere speculation that a suspect may have used a cellphone near the location of the crime."

[...] Not just Google

Captain John Sherwin of the Rochester Police Department in Minnesota said it wasn't just Google that could furnish cops with a startling mount of detailed location data. Facebook and Snapchat were two others who'd proven useful, he said.

Should we be concerned that government tracks people by their cell phones instead of using mandatory brain implants?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 25 2018, @07:37AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 25 2018, @07:37AM (#753566)

    rather than insurance I'll post a bond. In California that was $30,000 at the time I got my license, I expect it's lots more now.

    While license plate readers could in principle integrate the Canadian DMV databases, I expect that they don't. Law enforcement MIS just isn't very well written.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 25 2018, @10:46AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 25 2018, @10:46AM (#753592)

    Spoken like not a very bright individual? Don't you realize that the tracking how nothing to do with "interface with some database", but that the numbers on your car stay the same. That's the tracking. Who, what, when, that's a different problem that's not applicable to actual tracking part. I know, maybe a little too abstract for some here especially people that waste their money on stupid things like posting bonds.