On the night of March 16, 2017, the city of Raleigh, North Carolina suffered its biggest fire in a century. The flames scorched 10 buildings, including churches and businesses. A seven-story apartment complex, then under construction, was reduced to ashes. The fire ultimately caused $50 million in damages.
Over the next year, authorities investigated the fire but seemed to struggle to determine its cause. According to a report by local NBC affiliate WRAL, the Raleigh police went to extreme lengths to find out if an arsonist may have set the blaze. Investigators served a search warrant to Google, asking that the company to provide the coordinates of any phones that were in the area between 7:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. on the night of the fire. It was likely for naught—police ended up classifying the cause of the fire as "undetermined."
Police departments across the country have been knocking at Google's door for at least the last two years with warrants to tap into the company's extensive stores of cellphone location data. Known as "reverse location search warrants," these legal mandates allow law enforcement to sweep up the coordinates and movements of every cellphone in a broad area. The police can then check to see if any of the phones came close to the crime scene. In doing so, however, the police can end up not only fishing for a suspect, but also gathering the location data of potentially hundreds (or thousands) of innocent people. There have only been anecdotal reports of reverse location searches, so it's unclear how widespread the practice is, but privacy advocates worry that Google's data will eventually allow more and more departments to conduct indiscriminate searches.
for the whole article.
https://slate.com/technology/2019/02/reverse-location-search-warrants-google-police.html
Yep, we all know the police can't be trusted in this way to be honest. Should be a way to limit their capability to only provide them with exactly what they require in the terms of the law and nothing else.
Quote from: Dieselboy on February 23, 2019, 04:15:33 AM
Yep, we all know the police can't be trusted in this way to be honest. Should be a way to limit their capability to only provide them with exactly what they require in the terms of the law and nothing else.
member though, some cops become cops to get around the law, so making laws will not help much.
Yep agree with that too. I was thinking more along the lines of a company like google giving access over a bit like a non-admin user with access to the specific area only. So that way, the cops dont need to be trusted not to do anything else, and google is still fully compliant.
A bit like giving your Porsche keys to your son and saying have fun, but you know youve got valet mode locked in and cannot be turned off...
Give everything an IPv6 address, and you'll never lose a sock again!
Or have any privacy, either... but what a small price to pay to keep track of all your socks!
Quote from: deanwebb on February 26, 2019, 08:46:17 AM
Give everything an IPv6 address, and you'll never lose a sock again!
Or have any privacy, either... but what a small price to pay to keep track of all your socks!
sometimes I wish I could attach GPS to my glasses. lose them all the time.
Quote from: ristau5741 on February 26, 2019, 10:52:09 AM
Quote from: deanwebb on February 26, 2019, 08:46:17 AM
Give everything an IPv6 address, and you'll never lose a sock again!
Or have any privacy, either... but what a small price to pay to keep track of all your socks!
sometimes I wish I could attach GPS to my glasses. lose them all the time.
I just connected my van to my home wireless network...