Google this week announced changes to the way it collects and stores user location data that might bring an end to geofence warrants.
In a blog published on Electronic Frontier Foundation’s website on Wednesday, EFF’s general counsel Jennifer Lynch gives us the good news that Google is so drastically changing the methods it uses to collect user location data that it just might put the kibosh on law enforcement’s use of geofence warrants going forward — but suggests that we perhaps shouldn’t hold our collective breaths as we wait for that to happen.
Just in case you’re unfamiliar with geofence warrants, I’ll let Ms Lynch explain:
“Geofence warrants require a provider—almost always Google—to search its entire reserve of user location data to identify all users or devices located within a geographic area during a time period specified by law enforcement. These warrants violate the Fourth Amendment because they are not targeted to a particular individual or device, like a typical warrant for digital communications. The only “evidence” supporting a geofence warrant is that a crime occurred in a particular area, and the perpetrator likely carried a cell phone that shared location data with Google. For this reason, they inevitably sweep up potentially hundreds of people who have no connection to the crime under investigation—and could turn each of those people into a suspect.”
These warrants, which Lynch points out should be illegal, are possible because of the massive amount of location data that Google has traditionally collected on people, which it calls “Location History” and stores in a James Bondish-scaled database called “Sensorvault.”
How big a thing are these geofence warrants? According to Google, they make up 25% of all warrants the company receives each year.
The good news is that on Tuesday Uncle Goog (well, actually Google Maps director of process Marlo McGriff did all the talking in a blog) said its changing the way it collects and stores location data, which should make it harder for geofence warrants to be effective.
