Analysis of Warrants Reveal Investigators Are Using Google Data To Try and Solve Non-Violent Crimes

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. When phone owners have a Google account and wittingly – but most likely, unwittingly – use their devices in a way that freely tracks their location and browsing history, of course it will become too tempting a mass collection of personal data for a flurry of law enforcement agencies to access. But if this data harvested by Google – and associated tools – is so readily available via warrants, it isn’t surprising at all that the police would want to use it to achieve what reports say are “shortcuts.” So the focus should be squarely on Google, and the courts. Why are these “shortcuts” available, what does the use of them entail, and what does the big picture of their deployment spell out, at this point in time? Related: Google geofence warrants are increasing at an alarming rate The way it works, “on the ground level,” is a law enforcement agency such as the police being able to obtain a search warrant and demand that Google provides a list of everyone who happens to be in the vicinity of a crime – and it doesn’t matter if it’s a serious, or a not-violent one. They will likely be in luck – since as reports note, “Google maintains one of the world’s most comprehensive repositories of location information.” Hopefully if not most, then a lot of people by now know how it goes: the phone you…Analysis of Warrants Reveal Investigators Are Using Google Data To Try and Solve Non-Violent Crimes