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New law enforcement tools are alarming for human rights defenders.
Geographic Zones and Keyword Orders are new law enforcement tools that are worrying privacy experts.
Lawyers and privacy experts argue that "Geofencing Orders" and "Keyword Orders" are akin to a general warrant made illegal under the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. Unlike other types of search warrants, which are designed to search for information about potential criminals, these warrants do not apply to a specific person.
In other words, with a "reverse search warrant," law enforcement is still looking for a suspect and asking tech companies to provide them with a list of people to investigate. For a Geofencing Warrant, anyone who is in a specific location at a specific time becomes a suspect and is subject to further investigation, which could mean providing the police with even more user data. In terms of keyword search warrants - another relatively new mechanism for obtaining user information - anyone searching for a specific phrase or address becomes a suspect.
For example, according to The Guardian, in January 2020, an alarming email from Google arrived in Zachary McCoy's inbox. According to the letter, the police requested user data, and McCoy had seven days to go to court and block their disclosure.
As McCoy later learned, the request was made in the course of a burglary investigation in a nearby house a year earlier. The evidence that made him a suspect was the whereabouts of the man on the bike ride - the police obtained this information from Google using a so-called "geofencing warrant." McCoy just ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up under investigation.
Geofencing orders are increasingly becoming the preferred tool of law enforcement. It received 11,554 requests for “geofencing orders” from law enforcement in 2020, up from 8396 in 2019 and 982 in 2018, according to Google.
This trend is alarming for privacy experts and human rights defenders. They are concerned that this surge in inquiries signals a new era in which law enforcement is finding increasingly creative ways to get user information from tech companies. Experts fear that the police will use this relatively uncontrolled mechanism in the context of new and controversial laws.
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Geographic Zones and Keyword Orders are new law enforcement tools that are worrying privacy experts.
Lawyers and privacy experts argue that "Geofencing Orders" and "Keyword Orders" are akin to a general warrant made illegal under the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. Unlike other types of search warrants, which are designed to search for information about potential criminals, these warrants do not apply to a specific person.
In other words, with a "reverse search warrant," law enforcement is still looking for a suspect and asking tech companies to provide them with a list of people to investigate. For a Geofencing Warrant, anyone who is in a specific location at a specific time becomes a suspect and is subject to further investigation, which could mean providing the police with even more user data. In terms of keyword search warrants - another relatively new mechanism for obtaining user information - anyone searching for a specific phrase or address becomes a suspect.
For example, according to The Guardian, in January 2020, an alarming email from Google arrived in Zachary McCoy's inbox. According to the letter, the police requested user data, and McCoy had seven days to go to court and block their disclosure.
As McCoy later learned, the request was made in the course of a burglary investigation in a nearby house a year earlier. The evidence that made him a suspect was the whereabouts of the man on the bike ride - the police obtained this information from Google using a so-called "geofencing warrant." McCoy just ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up under investigation.
Geofencing orders are increasingly becoming the preferred tool of law enforcement. It received 11,554 requests for “geofencing orders” from law enforcement in 2020, up from 8396 in 2019 and 982 in 2018, according to Google.
This trend is alarming for privacy experts and human rights defenders. They are concerned that this surge in inquiries signals a new era in which law enforcement is finding increasingly creative ways to get user information from tech companies. Experts fear that the police will use this relatively uncontrolled mechanism in the context of new and controversial laws.
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