april 13 american daily newspaper published on my website telling how the US police turn to Google to help investigate those crimes where investigators have no other way to find witnesses and suspects.
The article tells the story of Jorge Molina, a simple storekeeper accused of a murder committed in December 2018 in a suburb of Phoenix, the capital and largest city of Arizona, USA. The basis for the arrest was data received from Google that Jorge's phone was in the location of the crime, as well as a video camera recording with the car of the alleged killer - a white Honda, the same as Jorge's, while car numbers and the driver on the record it was impossible to distinguish.
After his arrest, Molin told officers that Marcos Gaeta, his mother's ex-boyfriend, sometimes borrowed his car. The Times found a document showing Marcos, 38, was driving the car without a license. Gaeta also had a long criminal record in the past. While Jorge was in jail, his girlfriend told his public defender, Jack Litvak, that she was with Molina at his house at the time of the shooting, and they also provided Uber for his alibi. Jorge's home, where he lives with his mother and three siblings, is about two miles from the scene of the murder. Litvak said his investigation also revealed that Molin occasionally logged into other people's phones to verify his Google account. This could have resulted in it appearing in multiple places for Google, although it is unknown if this happened in this case. After spending almost a week in jail, Jorge Molin was released while the police arrested Marcos Gaeta. Jorge said that during the arrest he lost his job, and, most likely, he will need a long time for moral recovery.
The geolocation data that served as the basis for Jorge's arrest was obtained by the Arizona police after receiving a warrant from a local court ordering Google to provide information on all devices that were near the crime scene at the specified time. Such queries use Google's huge database called Sensorvault, which turns the business of tracking the location of mobile phone users for advertising purposes into a handy tool for law enforcement. In an age of ubiquitous personal data collection by tech companies, this is just another example of how personal information β where you go, who your friends are, what you read, eat and watch, and when you do it β is being used for purposes that most people would couldn't even think. As personal information privacy issues have risen among users, politicians, and regulators, tech companies have come under increased scrutiny of their data collection practices.
Google says the Arizona murder story demonstrates both the promise and the dangers of a new investigative technique that has exploded in use over the past six months. On the one hand, it can help solve crimes, on the other hand, it can also expose innocent people to persecution. Tech companies have been responding to court rulings regarding specific user information for years. The new inquiries go much further, helping to find possible suspects and witnesses in the absence of other evidence. Often, according to Google employees, the company responds to a single warrant requesting information about the location of dozens or hundreds of devices at once.
Law enforcement officials described the new method as impressive, but warned that it was just one of their tools. "He doesn't come up with a response like a wire message saying the guy is guilty," says Gary Ernsdorf, a senior prosecutor in Washington State who has worked on several cases involving such warrants. βPotential suspects should be carefully vetted,β he added. "We're not going to blame anyone just because Google said they were near the crime scene."
This year, according to one of the employees of Google, the company received 180 requests per week for the provision of user geolocation data. Google declined to confirm exact numbers, but it clearly illustrates a phenomenon that privacy advocates have long called the "if you build it, they'll come to use it" principle, which means that whenever a tech company builds a system that can be used for surveillance , law enforcement agencies will certainly come with requests for its use. Sensorvault, according to Google employees, contains detailed records of location and movement, including at least hundreds of millions of devices around the world and dating back almost a decade, since the data is not limited in terms of storage.
Nevertheless, officially the new method of searching for suspects is used quite cautiously. Requests, sometimes referred to as βgeolocationβ warrants, define the search area and time period that police officers are interested in, the warrant itself requires judicial approval, after which Google collects information from Sensorvault about all devices that were in the specified place and time. The company labels them with anonymous identification numbers, and detectives look at the locations and movement patterns of the devices to determine if they, or rather their owners, have anything to do with the crime. Once the police identify several devices that they believe belong to the suspects or witnesses, then, after a second court request, Google will release the usernames and other personal information they have. The procedure may vary by state and, for example, require only one appeal to a judge.
Investigators who spoke to The New York Times said they do not send similar requests to companies other than Google. For example, Apple has stated that it cannot execute such orders for technical reasons. Google doesn't provide details about Sensorvault, but Aaron Edens, an intelligence analyst at the San Mateo County, California Sheriff's Office who has studied data from hundreds of phones, claims that most Android devices and some iPhones he's seen send data regularly. on Google about your location.
Brian McClendon, who until 2015 led the development of Google Maps and related products, shared that he and other engineers assumed that the police would only request data on specific individuals. According to him, the new technique "looks no different than a fishing expedition."
Source: 3dnews.ru