16 ms·

To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google

232 points by dlgeek 9y ago

danso 9y ago
This seems to me to be a major revelation: police in North Carolina have successfully requested Google account information on all phones near a crime scene. While Google routinely responds to search warrants, this is a much broader type of data request.
- londons_explore 9y ago
  Arguably, this leaks everyones data. Anyone who was not in the area will be excluded from the list, therefore letting the police know where I wasn't at the time. I wonder how Google show that on their transparency report? Hopefully "Accounts searched: 1.5 Billion"
  - TheCoreh 9y ago
    While I understand your point, and think it's a valid privacy concern, the reasoning about leaking info on all of Google's users doesn't make sense. If I install a security camera in my room, I'm not leaking information about you if it shows you're not here. There was no expectation of the possibility of that in the first place, so no information is leaked. This is only leaking information about the Google users who are reasonably likely to be within the radius where the query is executed. So perhaps a couple thousand users, (so a legit privacy concern) but not all of them.
  - salad77 9y ago
    > Anyone who was not in the area will be excluded from the list, therefore letting the police know where I wasn't at the time. No, at best this only shows that your google linked device (presumably a phone) did not have location information for that area at the specific time. Alternatively it suggests the device could have been switched off/disconnected from the network to hide your presence - making you really a suspect of interest if your name comes into the investigation for some reason. Dragnet approaches to law enforcement are inherently wrong. They unreasonably cast suspicion on everyone without any good basis and reverse the accepted safeguard that your guilt requires to be proven, and replace it with the idea that you require to prove your innocence.
    - oh_sigh 9y ago
      What about a situation where, say, 4 bank robberies happen and it is suspected to be the same person. Would it be reasonable to intersect cell phone records looking for someone who was present for all 4? Not sure if that officially counts as a dragnet if only we need result I s expected
    - bilbo0s 9y ago
      "...Alternatively it suggests the device could have been switched off/disconnected from the network to hide your presence - making you really a suspect of interest if your name comes into the investigation for some reason..." That's really interesting. If I'm understanding you correctly, people who routinely switch off their location services, could potentially end up as suspects in crimes if they, for instance, live in the apartment across the hall from the victim or something. So keeping location services on let's the police keep tabs on you, potentially making you a suspect in some crime in the future. Alternatively, turning it off potentially turns you into a suspect of interest in some potential crime in the future.
      - logic101010 9y ago
        Welcome to police logic! Sounds like you agree entirely with the poster's final comment : "They unreasonably cast suspicion on everyone without any good basis and reverse the accepted safeguard that your guilt requires to be proven, and replace it with the idea that you require to prove your innocence."
- pmorici 9y ago
  Police have used this sort of investigative technique for ages this is just an instance of it being applied to Google and phones. For example, Sparkfun received a subpoena[0] once and they ended up having to turn over customer details of anyone from Georgia who purchased a particular Sparkfun product that was used in some crime. Another example, we've all seen movies or heard where someone sees a vehicle that flees the scene of the crime and they knew the make and color or the first few digits of the plate but not enough to identify the vehicle so they go and pull all DMV records matching the vague description and use those leads to narrow things down from there. This Google thing is really the same thing in this case they have a vague description of a person and a narrow time period and area in which to search. They also are getting a warrant. Seems like an application of an old technique to modern technology. [0] https://www.sparkfun.com/news/836 https://www.sparkfun.com/news/836
  - ams6110 9y ago
    So this is another reason why as a business you want to keep minimal information on your customers. Not only does it respect their privacy, but it makes your data security compliance much easier.
    - pmorici 9y ago
      I think people might be missing the finer details of this story. This is an example of the system working the way it is supposed to. They are getting a warrant and asking for very narrowly scoped information. If you take your argument to the logical extreme then businesses shouldn't have security cameras either. No crime would ever be solved.
      - user5994461 9y ago
        There can be hundreds of people in any venue. There can be more than ten thousands in a skyscraper. Everyone in an "area" is not necessarily a narrow scope.
        pmorici 9y ago
Overtonwindow 9y ago
Wow that's deeply disturbing but also feels like a similar tactic to the stingrays. Does simply owning a cell phone and being in a geographical area make you open to 4th amendment search and identification?
- Normal_gaussian 9y ago
  Unsurprisingly being in close proximity to a crime makes you a reasonable initial suspect. Identifying those close to a crime is and always has been standard and reasonable police procedure. The reasonableness of a subsequent search based on this location information is context dependent.
  - roywiggins 9y ago
    It seems morally similar to scooping up all CCTV from nearby businesses. If this is going through a warrant process, and it's geofenced around a specific crime they're investigating, it's hard to feel too worried about it. The worst case scenario I can see is that it makes it easy to generate false hypotheses and put innocent people under suspicion, but then so can canvassing the neighborhood and trawling all the nearby CCTV.
    - Tronno 9y ago
      The difference is in that, while CCTV cameras are usually visible and obvious (many areas even have signs indicating as such), most people are unaware they are being tracked in the manner described in the article. CCTV and GPS "fencing" would be comparable if Google were to issue statements clarifying that your location is being tracked and recorded, and may be surrendered to the police without your knowledge.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - curun1r 9y ago
      CCTV is more analogous to a witness that provides a fixed point of view. Location data feels much closer to providing the point of view of the suspect and comes much closer, to my mind, to being protected by our 5th amendment rights to avoid self incrimination. Also, given that Google don't make it obvious when they're storing information in the phone or on their servers, information that intuitively feels like it's inside the phone should be protected by the 4th amendment's prohibitions on illegal searches. That's if the phone is owned by the suspect. If the phone is owned by the victim or anyone willing to give consent to search, I have no problem with police using it.
larkeith 9y ago
Yet another reason to disable GPS and location history (and any other functionality you use infrequently) when not actively necessary.
- Normal_gaussian 9y ago
  Or alternatively use a self hosted or less well known alternative.
- karmakaze 9y ago
  The only way is to not use any Google services. If you connect from mobile IP ranges as other users who are in the area, you could also easily be included. Same goes for cell towers but at least it's not a single entity.
  - stefan_ 9y ago
    Google collects location data from WLAN networks in reach, triangulates from cell tower signal strength, GPS, GLONASS, geoip and if all that fails, sheer historical prediction. And no one quite knows why, other than "because we can". There is Google Maps, but when I'm not using it, when exactly is this orwellian infrastructure to my benefit and not exclusively Googles?
    - izuchukwu 9y ago
      “personalized search” While a true statement, it’s unfortunate how broad of a license it ultimately provides.
      - John_KZ 9y ago
        And the funny thing is that many of us don't even want personalized search.
      - strong_silent_t 9y ago
        2-way personalized search. You search Google and Google searches you.
cornholio 9y ago
In principle and with some caveats, I support this use of tracking information: it's usually quite specific, it has a very positive efect for law enforcement, it's not a breach of fundamental rights of the suspect as confirmation of the physical location at a certain time is not secret and can be obtained by the police from CCTV cameras, eyewitnesses etc. The privacy of the bystanders is not significantly reduced if and only if the police will use the specific datadump for the purpose of solving the crime for which the warant has been issued - as opposed to building a massive cross-referenced database from multiple such incidents. I am concerned that a few warrants like 'all information on everybody who was at the Superbowl' would quickly download massive amounts of data from Google to the police. I think regulation should be enacted that balances the social interest with the private interest, for example, Google could be issued a specific warrant of the type "data on all individuals that were in location X1,T1 and also in X2,T2", and Google should answer only when the query is sufficiently specific to return only a handful of results.
- ribosometronome 9y ago
  I don't know if I really understand your argument. You're justifying this by comparing it to CCTVs and eyewitnesses, but there isn't really any expectation that CCTVs and eyewitnesses respect the privacy of bystanders or limits on reviewing CCTV data or receiving reports of crimes from eyewitnesses in most areas. Which isn't to say that I think we should allow limitless collection but rather that, even while justifying it using CCTVs, you're still treating them differently. I'd wager that's because it is different.
- roywiggins 9y ago
  I think you're being downvoted for having an unpopular opinion, which seems unfair. You're on-topic and cogent. Anyway, you might be interested in Carpenter v United States, which is testing the third-party doctrine in front of the Supreme Court and will be decided soon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States
  - quadrangle 9y ago
joering2 9y ago
This is probably one of the cons of using VPN. If criminal used VPN service that you happen to use and connect to the same node, expect police to read your emails, courtesy of Google. I'm still in the process of getting off google mail and switching to Proton. It takes time to go thru all my google emails and clean them up. Yes I know deleting them won't change a thing BUT at least I consent to deleting them on my end, versus merely abandoning my mailbox altogether. I know Google has capacity to keep all emails forever, but whether they do so or delete them after X amount of years, I don't know.
- londons_explore 9y ago
  Google guarantees to actually delete your emails 30 days after you delete them from your account. The GDPR law in europe requires them to do this for european citizens.
  - joering2 9y ago
    How do I know where my mailbox is located??
    - puzzle 9y ago
      It's actually complicated to know where your mailbox is. Even if you knew its current locations, Gmail rebalances the N replicas across X data centers all the time, based on a number of factors.
  - olympus 9y ago
    Does it guarantee to do this for everyone or just Europeans? Genuinely curious here since they might have separate policies in place for different countries- I imagine that China prefers to keep all its citizens' emails indefinitely.
    - puzzle 9y ago
      Google has been doing this for years, before even making public guarantees. There wasn't a separate policy for China when I left years ago and Gmail is blocked there anyway.
arca_vorago 9y ago
Stop using Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc if you care about privacy!
- bitmapbrother 9y ago
  I noticed you left out Apple - the same company that handed over control of their cloud servers to a Chinese state run company.
  - SubiculumCode 9y ago
    I notice you left out Amazon. In fact, there are a number of players to list, which is the reason the grandparent wrote 'etc..'
    - bitmapbrother 9y ago
      Apple is the biggest company in the world, by market cap. I would hardly call Apple a member of the 'etc..' list.
      - SubiculumCode 9y ago
        Mentioning Apple to bring up the point is different than calling out parent for leaving it off. It was petty.
        bitmapbrother 9y ago
        Petty is allowing Chinese state run companies to hand over all of their users data to the Chinese government while proclaiming you respect and protect your users privacy.
  - arca_vorago 9y ago
    Not sure why I left out Apple, but I agree. etc covers too many to list though... because everyone is doing it (even yc companies)
nkurz 9y ago
This is an important story, but a little difficult to summarize. Here's my attempt at an overview: 1. Google stores location history data for more of its mobile users than you might expect. The precision is greatest when GPS is on, but less precise data from cell towers and WiFi sources is used almost any time a Google app is being used on an Android or non-Android phone. There have been cases in the past where Google has recorded such information even when the user has explicitly turned off all location services, but Google says they have stopped this practice. 2. On multiple recent occasions, police in North Carolina have quietly been successful in obtaining search warrants that force Google to turn over these records. Rather than "standard" search warrants asking for the location of a particular suspect in a crime, these "reverse" or "area based" warrants ask for time and location data for all users who have entered a geographical area during a time of interest. The records returned are initially anonymous account numbers, and the police then make followup requests for identifying information of the subset of accounts that they think are of interest to the case. 3. This open-ended "drag net" approach scares some people. Typically, at least in the US, suspects are identified first, and then further information is gathered that confirms or removes the suspicion. The express fear seems to be that innocent people will be falsely accused due to coincidence, but there is also a more general fear that once mechanisms are in place that allow the police to have easy access to location tracking information, this information will end up being abused.
- wildrhythms 9y ago
  >Google stores location history data for more of its mobile users than you might expect What do you mean by this?
  - pmorici 9y ago
    You don't have to be using Maps or an app that obviously uses location for Google to be collecting location related information. I have no idea when they do or don't but I'd bet people would be surprised if they found that the gmail app was relaying their location to Google. On the other hand few wouuld be surprised at all if you told them the maps app was sending their location.
mtgx 9y ago
And Google, now a defense contractor willing to work on weapons of war to make a (bigger) profit, will gladly assist them. They're themselves creating the incentive to do that, just as when they got into the content and content licensing game, they ended up creating the most aggressive content censorship system on the (free) internet, beyond even what the laws require. It's no longer a matter of "choosing to do the right thing". The (bad) incentives are already in place. Now Google just reacts to the incentives it created. We're also supposed to "just trust them" that their secret AI Ethical Board, which can be replaced at any moment, also in secret, will do the right thing when things will go bad with its AI. They've already created the incentive to cheat by keeping that board secret.
- gourou 9y ago
  > Google, now a defense contractor They sold their stake in Boston Dynamics https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-17/google-is-said-to-put-boston-dynamics-robotics-unit-up-for-sale https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-17/google-is...
  - kodablah 9y ago
    That's not their only defense contract. E.g. https://gizmodo.com/google-is-helping-the-pentagon-build-ai-for-drones-1823464533 https://gizmodo.com/google-is-helping-the-pentagon-build-ai-...
alexandercrohde 9y ago
Well I'm sure this seems really neat, but criminals will simply not bring their phones and then be excluded from the search.
lopmotr 9y ago
I used to wonder why New York subways were somehow a high crime area. I thought, surely they're such small closed places that if there's a crime, the police can just block the exits and check everyone leaving, or look at the CCTV footage to identify them. But then I found out that they don't do that! Americans are so concerned about privacy, they let themselves get robbed and murdered every day. It's clear that they don't trust their own police. That's perhaps the real problem. If they could be made trustworthy like in many other countries, people would probably be happy to have murders solved through video footage, cellphone locations, etc. It amazes me that even one person on here thinks this is a bad idea. Real killers would have got away otherwise. This isn't some wild NSA anti-terrorism dragnet, it's just normal police work collecting normal evidence specific to the crime.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- deathhand 9y ago
  Why don't people trust cops? Asset forfeiture, crooked cops, shoot first ask questions later, a strong union which protects their own, and their ability to spy on their personal rivals through NSA/FBI tools makes us a paranoid bunch. The last part.. NYPD mis-used tools to track former lovers[1] and there was no reprocussion. How can we feel safe? [1]https://nypost.com/2013/11/08/jealous-cop-admits-to-hacking-nypd-files-to-spy-on-ex/ https://nypost.com/2013/11/08/jealous-cop-admits-to-hacking-...
  - Erlangolem 9y ago
    Plus things like: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/nyregion/police-unit-that-spied-on-muslims-is-disbanded.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/nyregion/police-unit-that... Not to mention historical corruption on a grand scale.
  - thomasahle 9y ago
    Also, location data has a history of getting many people convicted innocently: https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21615622-junk-science-putting-innocent-people-jail-two-towers https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21615622-junk-s...
YaxelPerez 9y ago
https://www.google.com/maps/timeline https://www.google.com/maps/timeline
aiCeivi9 9y ago
But why Google? Shouldn't they ask mobile operators in first place?
Bizarro 9y ago
City and county officials say the practice is a natural evolution of criminal investigative techniques. Ah yes, very "natural" And they're carefully balancing civil rights with public safety. and "carefully balancing" Bureaucrats and their weasel words.

232 points by dlgeek 9y ago

This seems to me to be a major revelation: police in North Carolina have successfully requested Google account information on all phones near a crime scene. While Google routinely responds to search warrants, this is a much broader type of data request.

londons_explore 9y ago
Arguably, this leaks everyones data. Anyone who was not in the area will be excluded from the list, therefore letting the police know where I wasn't at the time. I wonder how Google show that on their transparency report? Hopefully "Accounts searched: 1.5 Billion"
- TheCoreh 9y ago
  While I understand your point, and think it's a valid privacy concern, the reasoning about leaking info on all of Google's users doesn't make sense. If I install a security camera in my room, I'm not leaking information about you if it shows you're not here. There was no expectation of the possibility of that in the first place, so no information is leaked. This is only leaking information about the Google users who are reasonably likely to be within the radius where the query is executed. So perhaps a couple thousand users, (so a legit privacy concern) but not all of them.
- salad77 9y ago
  > Anyone who was not in the area will be excluded from the list, therefore letting the police know where I wasn't at the time. No, at best this only shows that your google linked device (presumably a phone) did not have location information for that area at the specific time. Alternatively it suggests the device could have been switched off/disconnected from the network to hide your presence - making you really a suspect of interest if your name comes into the investigation for some reason. Dragnet approaches to law enforcement are inherently wrong. They unreasonably cast suspicion on everyone without any good basis and reverse the accepted safeguard that your guilt requires to be proven, and replace it with the idea that you require to prove your innocence.
  - oh_sigh 9y ago
    What about a situation where, say, 4 bank robberies happen and it is suspected to be the same person. Would it be reasonable to intersect cell phone records looking for someone who was present for all 4? Not sure if that officially counts as a dragnet if only we need result I s expected
  - bilbo0s 9y ago
    "...Alternatively it suggests the device could have been switched off/disconnected from the network to hide your presence - making you really a suspect of interest if your name comes into the investigation for some reason..." That's really interesting. If I'm understanding you correctly, people who routinely switch off their location services, could potentially end up as suspects in crimes if they, for instance, live in the apartment across the hall from the victim or something. So keeping location services on let's the police keep tabs on you, potentially making you a suspect in some crime in the future. Alternatively, turning it off potentially turns you into a suspect of interest in some potential crime in the future.
    - logic101010 9y ago
      Welcome to police logic! Sounds like you agree entirely with the poster's final comment : "They unreasonably cast suspicion on everyone without any good basis and reverse the accepted safeguard that your guilt requires to be proven, and replace it with the idea that you require to prove your innocence."
pmorici 9y ago
Police have used this sort of investigative technique for ages this is just an instance of it being applied to Google and phones. For example, Sparkfun received a subpoena[0] once and they ended up having to turn over customer details of anyone from Georgia who purchased a particular Sparkfun product that was used in some crime. Another example, we've all seen movies or heard where someone sees a vehicle that flees the scene of the crime and they knew the make and color or the first few digits of the plate but not enough to identify the vehicle so they go and pull all DMV records matching the vague description and use those leads to narrow things down from there. This Google thing is really the same thing in this case they have a vague description of a person and a narrow time period and area in which to search. They also are getting a warrant. Seems like an application of an old technique to modern technology. [0] https://www.sparkfun.com/news/836 https://www.sparkfun.com/news/836
- ams6110 9y ago
  So this is another reason why as a business you want to keep minimal information on your customers. Not only does it respect their privacy, but it makes your data security compliance much easier.
  - pmorici 9y ago
    I think people might be missing the finer details of this story. This is an example of the system working the way it is supposed to. They are getting a warrant and asking for very narrowly scoped information. If you take your argument to the logical extreme then businesses shouldn't have security cameras either. No crime would ever be solved.
    - user5994461 9y ago
      There can be hundreds of people in any venue. There can be more than ten thousands in a skyscraper. Everyone in an "area" is not necessarily a narrow scope.
      - pmorici 9y ago

Overtonwindow 9y ago

Wow that's deeply disturbing but also feels like a similar tactic to the stingrays. Does simply owning a cell phone and being in a geographical area make you open to 4th amendment search and identification?

Normal_gaussian 9y ago
Unsurprisingly being in close proximity to a crime makes you a reasonable initial suspect. Identifying those close to a crime is and always has been standard and reasonable police procedure. The reasonableness of a subsequent search based on this location information is context dependent.
- roywiggins 9y ago
  It seems morally similar to scooping up all CCTV from nearby businesses. If this is going through a warrant process, and it's geofenced around a specific crime they're investigating, it's hard to feel too worried about it. The worst case scenario I can see is that it makes it easy to generate false hypotheses and put innocent people under suspicion, but then so can canvassing the neighborhood and trawling all the nearby CCTV.
  - Tronno 9y ago
    The difference is in that, while CCTV cameras are usually visible and obvious (many areas even have signs indicating as such), most people are unaware they are being tracked in the manner described in the article. CCTV and GPS "fencing" would be comparable if Google were to issue statements clarifying that your location is being tracked and recorded, and may be surrendered to the police without your knowledge.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - curun1r 9y ago
    CCTV is more analogous to a witness that provides a fixed point of view. Location data feels much closer to providing the point of view of the suspect and comes much closer, to my mind, to being protected by our 5th amendment rights to avoid self incrimination. Also, given that Google don't make it obvious when they're storing information in the phone or on their servers, information that intuitively feels like it's inside the phone should be protected by the 4th amendment's prohibitions on illegal searches. That's if the phone is owned by the suspect. If the phone is owned by the victim or anyone willing to give consent to search, I have no problem with police using it.

larkeith 9y ago

Yet another reason to disable GPS and location history (and any other functionality you use infrequently) when not actively necessary.

Normal_gaussian 9y ago
Or alternatively use a self hosted or less well known alternative.
karmakaze 9y ago
The only way is to not use any Google services. If you connect from mobile IP ranges as other users who are in the area, you could also easily be included. Same goes for cell towers but at least it's not a single entity.
- stefan_ 9y ago
  Google collects location data from WLAN networks in reach, triangulates from cell tower signal strength, GPS, GLONASS, geoip and if all that fails, sheer historical prediction. And no one quite knows why, other than "because we can". There is Google Maps, but when I'm not using it, when exactly is this orwellian infrastructure to my benefit and not exclusively Googles?
  - izuchukwu 9y ago
    “personalized search” While a true statement, it’s unfortunate how broad of a license it ultimately provides.
    - John_KZ 9y ago
      And the funny thing is that many of us don't even want personalized search.
    - strong_silent_t 9y ago
      2-way personalized search. You search Google and Google searches you.

cornholio 9y ago

In principle and with some caveats, I support this use of tracking information: it's usually quite specific, it has a very positive efect for law enforcement, it's not a breach of fundamental rights of the suspect as confirmation of the physical location at a certain time is not secret and can be obtained by the police from CCTV cameras, eyewitnesses etc. The privacy of the bystanders is not significantly reduced if and only if the police will use the specific datadump for the purpose of solving the crime for which the warant has been issued - as opposed to building a massive cross-referenced database from multiple such incidents. I am concerned that a few warrants like 'all information on everybody who was at the Superbowl' would quickly download massive amounts of data from Google to the police. I think regulation should be enacted that balances the social interest with the private interest, for example, Google could be issued a specific warrant of the type "data on all individuals that were in location X1,T1 and also in X2,T2", and Google should answer only when the query is sufficiently specific to return only a handful of results.

ribosometronome 9y ago
I don't know if I really understand your argument. You're justifying this by comparing it to CCTVs and eyewitnesses, but there isn't really any expectation that CCTVs and eyewitnesses respect the privacy of bystanders or limits on reviewing CCTV data or receiving reports of crimes from eyewitnesses in most areas. Which isn't to say that I think we should allow limitless collection but rather that, even while justifying it using CCTVs, you're still treating them differently. I'd wager that's because it is different.
roywiggins 9y ago
I think you're being downvoted for having an unpopular opinion, which seems unfair. You're on-topic and cogent. Anyway, you might be interested in Carpenter v United States, which is testing the third-party doctrine in front of the Supreme Court and will be decided soon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States
- quadrangle 9y ago

joering2 9y ago

This is probably one of the cons of using VPN. If criminal used VPN service that you happen to use and connect to the same node, expect police to read your emails, courtesy of Google. I'm still in the process of getting off google mail and switching to Proton. It takes time to go thru all my google emails and clean them up. Yes I know deleting them won't change a thing BUT at least I consent to deleting them on my end, versus merely abandoning my mailbox altogether. I know Google has capacity to keep all emails forever, but whether they do so or delete them after X amount of years, I don't know.

londons_explore 9y ago
Google guarantees to actually delete your emails 30 days after you delete them from your account. The GDPR law in europe requires them to do this for european citizens.
- joering2 9y ago
  How do I know where my mailbox is located??
  - puzzle 9y ago
    It's actually complicated to know where your mailbox is. Even if you knew its current locations, Gmail rebalances the N replicas across X data centers all the time, based on a number of factors.
- olympus 9y ago
  Does it guarantee to do this for everyone or just Europeans? Genuinely curious here since they might have separate policies in place for different countries- I imagine that China prefers to keep all its citizens' emails indefinitely.
  - puzzle 9y ago
    Google has been doing this for years, before even making public guarantees. There wasn't a separate policy for China when I left years ago and Gmail is blocked there anyway.

arca_vorago 9y ago

Stop using Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc if you care about privacy!

bitmapbrother 9y ago
I noticed you left out Apple - the same company that handed over control of their cloud servers to a Chinese state run company.
- SubiculumCode 9y ago
  I notice you left out Amazon. In fact, there are a number of players to list, which is the reason the grandparent wrote 'etc..'
  - bitmapbrother 9y ago
    Apple is the biggest company in the world, by market cap. I would hardly call Apple a member of the 'etc..' list.
    - SubiculumCode 9y ago
      Mentioning Apple to bring up the point is different than calling out parent for leaving it off. It was petty.
      - bitmapbrother 9y ago
        Petty is allowing Chinese state run companies to hand over all of their users data to the Chinese government while proclaiming you respect and protect your users privacy.
- arca_vorago 9y ago
  Not sure why I left out Apple, but I agree. etc covers too many to list though... because everyone is doing it (even yc companies)

nkurz 9y ago

This is an important story, but a little difficult to summarize. Here's my attempt at an overview: 1. Google stores location history data for more of its mobile users than you might expect. The precision is greatest when GPS is on, but less precise data from cell towers and WiFi sources is used almost any time a Google app is being used on an Android or non-Android phone. There have been cases in the past where Google has recorded such information even when the user has explicitly turned off all location services, but Google says they have stopped this practice. 2. On multiple recent occasions, police in North Carolina have quietly been successful in obtaining search warrants that force Google to turn over these records. Rather than "standard" search warrants asking for the location of a particular suspect in a crime, these "reverse" or "area based" warrants ask for time and location data for all users who have entered a geographical area during a time of interest. The records returned are initially anonymous account numbers, and the police then make followup requests for identifying information of the subset of accounts that they think are of interest to the case. 3. This open-ended "drag net" approach scares some people. Typically, at least in the US, suspects are identified first, and then further information is gathered that confirms or removes the suspicion. The express fear seems to be that innocent people will be falsely accused due to coincidence, but there is also a more general fear that once mechanisms are in place that allow the police to have easy access to location tracking information, this information will end up being abused.

wildrhythms 9y ago
>Google stores location history data for more of its mobile users than you might expect What do you mean by this?
- pmorici 9y ago
  You don't have to be using Maps or an app that obviously uses location for Google to be collecting location related information. I have no idea when they do or don't but I'd bet people would be surprised if they found that the gmail app was relaying their location to Google. On the other hand few wouuld be surprised at all if you told them the maps app was sending their location.

mtgx 9y ago

And Google, now a defense contractor willing to work on weapons of war to make a (bigger) profit, will gladly assist them. They're themselves creating the incentive to do that, just as when they got into the content and content licensing game, they ended up creating the most aggressive content censorship system on the (free) internet, beyond even what the laws require. It's no longer a matter of "choosing to do the right thing". The (bad) incentives are already in place. Now Google just reacts to the incentives it created. We're also supposed to "just trust them" that their secret AI Ethical Board, which can be replaced at any moment, also in secret, will do the right thing when things will go bad with its AI. They've already created the incentive to cheat by keeping that board secret.

gourou 9y ago
> Google, now a defense contractor They sold their stake in Boston Dynamics https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-17/google-is-said-to-put-boston-dynamics-robotics-unit-up-for-sale https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-17/google-is...
- kodablah 9y ago
  That's not their only defense contract. E.g. https://gizmodo.com/google-is-helping-the-pentagon-build-ai-for-drones-1823464533 https://gizmodo.com/google-is-helping-the-pentagon-build-ai-...

alexandercrohde 9y ago

Well I'm sure this seems really neat, but criminals will simply not bring their phones and then be excluded from the search.

lopmotr 9y ago

I used to wonder why New York subways were somehow a high crime area. I thought, surely they're such small closed places that if there's a crime, the police can just block the exits and check everyone leaving, or look at the CCTV footage to identify them. But then I found out that they don't do that! Americans are so concerned about privacy, they let themselves get robbed and murdered every day. It's clear that they don't trust their own police. That's perhaps the real problem. If they could be made trustworthy like in many other countries, people would probably be happy to have murders solved through video footage, cellphone locations, etc. It amazes me that even one person on here thinks this is a bad idea. Real killers would have got away otherwise. This isn't some wild NSA anti-terrorism dragnet, it's just normal police work collecting normal evidence specific to the crime.

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deathhand 9y ago
Why don't people trust cops? Asset forfeiture, crooked cops, shoot first ask questions later, a strong union which protects their own, and their ability to spy on their personal rivals through NSA/FBI tools makes us a paranoid bunch. The last part.. NYPD mis-used tools to track former lovers[1] and there was no reprocussion. How can we feel safe? [1]https://nypost.com/2013/11/08/jealous-cop-admits-to-hacking-nypd-files-to-spy-on-ex/ https://nypost.com/2013/11/08/jealous-cop-admits-to-hacking-...
- Erlangolem 9y ago
  Plus things like: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/nyregion/police-unit-that-spied-on-muslims-is-disbanded.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/nyregion/police-unit-that... Not to mention historical corruption on a grand scale.
- thomasahle 9y ago
  Also, location data has a history of getting many people convicted innocently: https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21615622-junk-science-putting-innocent-people-jail-two-towers https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21615622-junk-s...

YaxelPerez 9y ago

https://www.google.com/maps/timeline https://www.google.com/maps/timeline

aiCeivi9 9y ago

But why Google? Shouldn't they ask mobile operators in first place?

Bizarro 9y ago

City and county officials say the practice is a natural evolution of criminal investigative techniques. Ah yes, very "natural" And they're carefully balancing civil rights with public safety. and "carefully balancing" Bureaucrats and their weasel words.