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posted by martyb on Wednesday June 19 2019, @12:51AM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-my-data-no-matter-*where*-it-was-stored dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4463

ACLU: Police must get warrants to obtain personal data from cars

You might not think of your car as a treasure trove of personal data, but it frequently is -- performance data, phone contacts and location info may be sitting under the hood. And the American Civil Liberties Union wants to be sure police can't just take it. The organization is appearing as a friend of the court in Georgia's Supreme Court on June 19th to argue that personal data on cars is protected by the US Constitution's Fourth Amendment and thus requires a warrant. The appearance is tied to a case, Mobley vs. State, where police used a car's "black box" to level more serious charges.

After a deadly car crash, Georgia police downloaded data from the Event Data Recorder on Mobley's car to determine his speed before the crash, using that to level more severe accusations against him. Georgia has contended that this was legal under the Fourth Amendment's "vehicle exception" allowing searches for physical items, but the ACLU believes this doesn't count for digital data. It likened this to requiring a warrant for phone data -- just because the device holding the data is obtainable without a warrant doesn't mean the data is also up for grabs.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by black6host on Wednesday June 19 2019, @01:27AM

    by black6host (3827) on Wednesday June 19 2019, @01:27AM (#857275) Journal

    Well, I have to agree with you on the point you made. Since the ACLU is involved, I have to assume that they see this as a slippery slope to something more nefarious. Or, if your not as cynical as I am, you can look at it from the point of view that anything the police do (and others) requires public scrutiny. I don't think that's a bad thing.

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