Google shares data on the location of users with the police, reports The New York Times, citing its own sources. The authorities send an official request to the company, then the suspects are detained. But sometimes innocent people go to jail based on Google data.
Google transfers the geolocation data of its users to the US police, and law enforcement officers use this data as a basis for arresting suspects, and in some cases arresting innocent people.
Google stores the history of users' movements in a database called Sensorvault, and it is from there that information is issued to the police. The database stores data from hundreds of millions of devices around the world, collected by Google over the past 10 years. According to several current and former employees of the corporation, the base was not developed for the needs of law enforcement agencies.
Police need a court order to obtain data from the company. After a criminal case is opened, law enforcement officers send a request to Google. It indicates a geofence in which you need to identify suspects or eyewitnesses of the crime. For example, when there were explosions in Austin (Texas), they requested information on all devices in the area and in the same time frame.
The company transmits to the police the trajectories of all users on a given site at a given time. Usernames are not disclosed at this stage, they are hidden behind special identification numbers. Then the police select the necessary devices from a variety of devices and ask Google for more detailed information.
A source in the company says that in the past six months, cases of providing geodata at the request of the police have increased. Having received information from Google which of the users was near the crime scene, law enforcement officers calculate on the basis of this data not only suspects, but also witnesses.
Representatives of the Washington state prosecutor's office interviewed by the publication argue that no one draws conclusions about a person's involvement in a crime based on Google geodata alone and that obtaining such evidence does not negate a full-fledged investigation.
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It is not yet known the number of cases in which the suspects were arrested on a tip from Google. For the first time, law enforcement officers resorted to this practice in 2016, according to the source, and it was first announced publicly in 2018 in North Carolina. Since then, data from Google have been requested by law enforcement officers in California, Florida, Minnesota and Washington. The company now receives about 180 such requests per week.
New York Times law enforcement sources claim that of all companies, such requests are sent only to Google. Apple says it has no technical ability to find out where its users' devices were at a certain point in time in the past.
Sources at the company say Sensorvault was not designed for law enforcement, and therefore the accuracy of geolocation is far from one hundred percent. The police like working with Google, and they are pleased with the quality of the location of the devices. Since the location of a device on Google is determined from several sources, including GPS, cell towers, nearby Wi-Fi devices and Bluetooth, the result is more accurate than the cellular operators who use only their towers for this.
The New York Times describes several cases of the use of the method by the police, when, based on Google data, innocent people were jailed. For example, in March 2018, police investigated the murder of a 29-year-old aircraft repair company employee, who was shot dead at his home in Phoenix, Arizona.
The police made a request to Google, and after 6 months it sent geolocation data obtained from four devices at the time when the murder occurred. The location of the car on the video from the security cameras and Google data on the phone coincided with the account of 24-year-old Jorge Molina, who was arrested on suspicion of murder.
The guy was imprisoned for a week, but during the investigation it turned out that Molina logged into the Google account from other people's smartphones, so he could be registered with Sensorvault in several places at once. Further it turned out that at the time of the murder, the young man was with his girlfriend, as evidenced by a receipt from Uber. Molina's house, where he lives with his mother and three siblings, is two miles from the crime scene. And the car was taken by his mother's ex-boyfriend, Marcos Gaeta, who was later arrested on suspicion of murder.
Molina was released, but the stress he experienced was still taking its toll on his health several months later. In addition, the detention was carried out at Molina's workplace, which is why he was fired. His car was confiscated for investigation purposes, but then returned. Molina's lawyer notes that law enforcement officers had good intentions when they used Google data, but they put too much trust in the flawed system.
According to Google employees familiar with the inquiries, the Phoenix case demonstrates the promise and dangers of a new investigation technique that has exploded in use over the past six months. It can help solve crimes, but it can also frame innocent people.
At the moment, it is not completely clear how often investigations involving the tracking system from Google led to real arrests and sentences, because many cases remain open and the requests are classified.
We recommend reading: "How to Get Rid of Google Tracking: 5 Easy Steps."