But why Google? Shouldn't they ask mobile operators in first place?
To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google
151–160 of 166 posts
Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google
#152City and county officials say the practice is a natural evolution of criminal investigative techniques.
Ah yes, very "natural"
And they're carefully balancing civil rights with public safety.
and "carefully balancing"
Bureaucrats and their weasel words.
Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google and Facebook may choose not to, but plenty of others will. Consider the technical challenges of implementing one set of compliance rules in one place, and one set elsewhere. The profit gain from not following GDPR in an area must exceed the cost of maintaining separate rulesets. LinkedIn's new policy that goes into effect in May appears to grant GDPR-like permissions across all users, for instance, though it d…
Under a hypothetical US version of the GDPR, Google might be prohibited from sharing that data with non-governmental third parties. But it wouldn't be prohibited from collecting and storing that data, as showing someone their location history (with clear opt-out language) is actually in the legitimate interest of providing better mapping services for that individual. And law enforcement wouldn't be subject to those t…
How is remembering where I have been useful to me at all? Hopefully something like a us GDPR would make them excplicitly ask my permission before stalking me.
Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Innocent people are commonly investigated because they were nearby when crimes were committed. Or because they somewhat match a victim's description of the attacker. Or because they're driving a vehicle that somewhat matches a description. But this is taking it to another level. Here, location and time are the only identifiers. Once you've identified someone who was at the location of the crime when it was committed,…
> But then, people often lie Police can lie with impunity when interrogating and it is all legal and protected mostly. They can get innocent people to plead guilty to all kind of crimes the didn't commit simply by threatening them.
This is why you should never be interviewed by a police officer unless you have council present. I know it's an Internet meme, but it's true.
Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google
#155And Google, now a defense contractor willing to work on weapons of war to make a (bigger) profit, will gladly assist them. They're themselves creating the incentive to do that, just as when they got into the content and content licensing game, they ended up creating the most aggressive content censorship system on the (free) internet, beyond even what the laws require. It's no longer a matter of "choosing to do the r…
> Google, now a defense contractor
They sold their stake in Boston Dynamics
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-17/google-is...
Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google
#156And Google, now a defense contractor willing to work on weapons of war to make a (bigger) profit, will gladly assist them. They're themselves creating the incentive to do that, just as when they got into the content and content licensing game, they ended up creating the most aggressive content censorship system on the (free) internet, beyond even what the laws require. It's no longer a matter of "choosing to do the r…
> Google, now a defense contractor They sold their stake in Boston Dynamics https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-17/google-is...
That's not their only defense contract. E.g. https://gizmodo.com/google-is-helping-the-pentagon-build-ai-...
Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
VPN settings - location - Europe - Germany. GDPR enabled.
Not really, the GDPR is applicable to persons in the EU (not just in Europe) and not to persons using a VPN server in the EU. Anyway, the GSPR does not ban American-style surveillance in Europe. Most European countries have used the Snowden leaks as a blueprint to increase surveillance in almost every aspect, especially online and with many related obligations for Internet companies.
I’m not sure how other companies will implement it but I certainly expect most to bluntly use geo-IP to locate customers and apply GDPR-compliant practices without digging too much whether that particular customer is likely to lawyer-up. European services probably will blanket apply it to all their customers.
It’s possible (if unlikely) that after a militant based in Europe but geo-IP located elsewhere by accident notices something unsavoury and complaints, that companies implements an “Are you based within the EU?” toggle in account settings to avoid headaches.
For social services, I’m curious on how processes based on your friends’ will be implemented when your friends are partially in the EU and elsewhere. But I don’t expect this will be much harder than it currently is to circumvent, say, Netflix geo-blocks.
Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
Holy shit. So my paranoia about turning off Google location tracking was completely well-founded, and way more quickly than I would have hoped. GDPR can't come soon enough...
Google already allows you delete your account-linked location data: https://myactivity.google.com Just be aware that deletion isn't instant though. From the TOS: >We aim to maintain our services in a manner that protects information from accidental or malicious destruction. Because of this, after you delete information from our services, we may not immediately delete residual copies from our active servers and may no…
I believe that many on-line services are not allowed to delete user data for a significant period of time (because terrorism & child exploitation).
Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google
#159In principle and with some caveats, I support this use of tracking information: it's usually quite specific, it has a very positive efect for law enforcement, it's not a breach of fundamental rights of the suspect as confirmation of the physical location at a certain time is not secret and can be obtained by the police from CCTV cameras, eyewitnesses etc. The privacy of the bystanders is not significantly reduced if…
The idea that they will use such data responsibly seems like handing a bag of candy to a 6 year-old and saying "Make sure to only eat one!" Perhaps I'm wrong, but I can't imagine them managing the overwhelming temptations to quietly abuse the data, especially as time goes on. Edit: I realize this is a crude analogy that glosses over a lot of important details, but it gets at the heart of my intuition on the matter. T…
It is not Google’s role to restrict the use of judge-mandated information share. If we suspect that law-enforcement agencies abuse their request, then their oversight committees need the ability to check this is not happening; whistle-blower within the agency should be protected.
Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
In addition to all the other, very serious concerns, I'll also ask this: How long until these records are available for subpoena, e.g. in a divorce case? (Maybe -- hopefully! -- not in area sweeps, but nonetheless, where was the other party and who was in proximity. As I'm writing this, well, maybe they will ask for all connections in proximity, that list then to be whittled down to a list of candidates (per the poli…
> How long until these records are available for subpoena, e.g. in a divorce case? I see nothing preventing this information being sought in U.S. discovery right now--at least in Federal litigation[0]. That isn't to say that the subpoena won't be squashed by a court for one of the traditional rationales under FRCP 26(b).[1] >When are police going to start sweeping such data up en masse, looking for e.g. parole violat…
P.S. I don't know why, from the lightness of your text now, you apparently got downvotes. I gave you an upvote, when I responded.