The police have far too much power in this. The police should only have the power to name a suspect and then request a single GPS fix in a window of their choosing. Anything else requires more judges to sign off. This power of dragnet, "give me everyone within 200 feet of this property in the last 48 hours" is just astoundingly one-sided.
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They did go to a jduge.
>...Gainesville police, looking for leads, went to an Alachua County judge with the warrant for Google.
I know they do- that's not the point. It's that you can goto a judge without knowing WHO you are asking for information on. The judge should have to see a suspect's name, information supporting why they are a suspect, etc. Not "gimme everything on everyone in this radius and this timeframe"
Why? They use it to compile a witness list, maybe suspect list, rule out many people, as a first approximation. As long as the data is archived and not open for abusive use; where do you feel any harm comes in?
"Somebody walked by the outside of a house where a 97-year-old said something was stolen" wasn't previously sufficient grounds to search every document you had ever written or received, but now it is.
Sure it was, if they walked/biked by the house 3 times in close succession around the time of the burglary. A completely legitimate reason to make him a person of interest and interview him. If he was picked up on a neighbour's door cam, this wouldn't even be on the news.
Because such information should only be used to confirm as specific person was present, not to dragnet a bunch of innocents.
Because it costs each innocent victim tens of thousands of dollars to defend themselves. If they are poor, they may have no defense. Next, they are plea bargaining to a crime they didn’t commit because that is the only reasonable option left.
It doesn't though. Hiring a lawyer was his choice. Location tracker data alone is not enough for him to be even a suspect, just a person of interest. And it's the tracker data that shows police that his passing the house 3 times around the time of the burglary (which is a completely legitimate reason to question someone) is in keeping with his usual routine and thus exonerates him.
>> "and thus exonerates him"
How does this exonerate him if he has no lawyer to go thru the procedural efforts? You are right that hiring a lawyer is a choice, in as much as going to prison is a choice.
>How does this exonerate him if he has no lawyer to go thru the procedural efforts?
Because police would likely not even contact him in the first place once they see that there's nothing extraordinary about his movements.
When you use a geofence you have a witness list of mostly innocent people. You can't rule out anyone because that information requires a warrant. The end result? Warrants on random people and most of them are innocent. The entire system is broken and was never going to work.
Have you heard the term "General Warrant", in Colonial times general warrant was issued by the Crown granting law-enforcement broad discretion or authority to search and seize unspecified places or persons.
This is plainly a type of General Warrant, something that was banned under the US Constitution
>>The police have far too much power in this.
Why it's not the case that Google has too much power in this, by collecting data from their users without asking their permission?
> by collecting data from their users without asking their permission
It is my understanding that Google Location services asks before storing this data. My fear is that by writing blanket untrue statements like this, people that don't know better just read it as fact, and spread it.
Disclaimer: Work at Google (in a different space), but everything I write here is my own opinions/views.
>>My fear is that by writing blanket untrue statements like this, people that don't know better just read it as fact, and spread it.
You are right! "people that don't know better" should do their own research on whether Google Location services ask for their permission.
Here are few links:
"Google records your location even when you tell it not to" https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/13/google-lo...
"Google Collected Data on Schoolchildren Without Permission" https://www.wired.com/2015/12/google-collected-data-on-schoo...
"More than 1,000 Android apps harvest data even after you deny permissions" https://www.cnet.com/news/more-than-1000-android-apps-harves...
"Thousands of Android apps can track your phone — even if you deny permissions" https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/8/20686514/android-covert-ch...
IMO, the articles have a bunch of nuance, but the titles are a bit click-baity. E.g. from the last article "Thousands of Android apps can track your phone -- even if you deny permissions". If you just read the title, one could possibly conclude that an app can just use the location API to get location data it was denied. However, when you read the article, you end up scenarios like this:
"The study also singles out photo app Shutterfly for sending actual GPS coordinates back to its servers without getting permission to track locations — by harvesting that data from your photos’ EXIF metadata — though the company denied that it gathers that data without permission in a statement to CNET."
Which is much more nuanced. Some would even consider it as a bug since it is coming from a side-channel. Also the article mentions that a lot of these things are being fixed with newer versions of Android (Q in this case).
However, by just quoting click-baity headlines, it gives the false impression that these products are purposely built to intrude on privacy.
Your understanding may be legally correct but is pragmatically incorrect.
“Normals” in no way understand they are consenting to this, and further, your employer continues to tighten the noose on users who did understand and turned it off, that products will no longer work without this data.
To be clear, Google has the right to demand location data as payment for services rendered.
>>Google has the right to demand location data as payment for services rendered.
Sure, just let them be clear about it. By clear, I don't mean they mention it in the last line of the 29th page.
They could put it in the first line and people wouldn’t read it. Pop up fatigue is getting intense. Generally nobody reads notices anymore. They just want the content or service.
This has been the situation for years. Many times I have told novice to average users that the words on pop-ups or modals sometimes actually matter and to help solve their problems, they should try reading the words.
...anymore?
Turning on Location Services requires tabbing through pages of location-specific text before the OK button is enabled.
> To be clear, Google has the right to demand location data as payment for services rendered.
I like the GDPR approach where you cannot force someone to pay with their privacy. If you want to demand payment, you can demand money.
> Google Location services asks before storing this data.
It certainly does not. In fact, the general prompts are just along the lines of "Maps won't work unless Location Services is on. Turn it on? [Y/N]"
>> collecting data from their users without asking their permission?
They do, but they do it in a way that seem innocuous.
Google is heavily vertically integrated, if you want to take advantage of many features in Android, you need to "allow" location tracking and collection. Most people want to use Waze, or Maps, or Reviews of Place, etc etc etc. If you do you agree to have your location tracked