MinnPost: These warrants let police sweep up data from anyone near a crime scene. A bipartisan Minnesota bill says they should be illegal. . “Law enforcement can request data related to crime scenes – or more expansive areas – and work backwards to look for suspects. A group of bipartisan Minnesota lawmakers says they should be illegal except in emergency scenarios. They argue reverse […]

"At the heart of the Chatrie case are legal orders known as geofence warrants. This controversial tool allows police to demand location data from tech companies (usually Google) to see every device in a specific area at a specific time. Imagine drawing a digital fence around a crime scene and demanding a list of every phone that crossed into it.

These demands can reveal precise details about people’s movements and locations. Authorities can pinpoint where someone stood within a couple of yards and whether they were on the first or second floor of a building.

But geofence warrants are also imprecise: They sweep up the movements not just of suspects but also of innocent people who happen to be within the digital fence. Demanding location data for a 150-yard radius of a bank in the hour before it was robbed, for example, may show the movements of people who worked at the bank, visited the psychiatrist’s office next door, worshipped at the church on the neighboring block, or dropped into the nearby strip club."

https://freedom.press/issues/supreme-court-could-greenlight-geofence-warrants/

#USA #PressFreedom #Journalism #Surveillance #Geolocation #GeofenceWarrants

#USA #DigitalRights #Geofencing #GeofenceWarrants #FourthAmendment #Surveillance #Privacy: "In a major decision on Friday, the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that geofence warrants are “categorically prohibited by the Fourth Amendment.” Closely following arguments EFF has made in a number of cases, the court found that geofence warrants constitute the sort of “general, exploratory rummaging” that the drafters of the Fourth Amendment intended to outlaw. EFF applauds this decision because it is essential that every person feels like they can simply take their cell phone out into the world without the fear that they might end up a criminal suspect because their location data was swept up in open-ended digital dragnet."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/08/federal-appeals-court-finds-geofence-warrants-are-categorically-unconstitutional

TL;DR: Google's recent changes to how it handles users' "Location History" data may make it more difficult for the company to provide mass location data in response to geofence warrants. While this is a positive step, it remains to be seen if law enforcement will find other ways to access location data in the future.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/end-geofence-warrants

#FourthAmendment #Privacy #GeofenceWarrants

#Google #Android #Geofencing #Surveillance #GeofenceWarrants #LocationHistory: "Google’s announcement outlined three changes to how it will treat Location History data. First, going forward, this data will be stored, by default, on a user’s device, instead of with Google in the cloud. Second, it will be set by default to delete after three months; currently Google stores the data for at least 18 months. Finally, if users choose to back up their data to the cloud, Google will “automatically encrypt your backed-up data so no one can read it, including Google.”

All of this is fantastic news for users, and we are cautiously optimistic that this will effectively mean the end of geofence warrants. These warrants are dangerous. They threaten privacy and liberty because they not only provide police with sensitive data on individuals, they could turn innocent people into suspects. Further, they have been used during political protests and threaten free speech and our ability to speak anonymously, without fear of government repercussions. For these reasons, EFF has repeatedly challenged geofence warrants in criminal cases and worked with other groups (including tech companies) to push for legislative bans on their use."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/end-geofence-warrants

#Google #Jan6 #LawEnforcement #geotracking #GeofenceWarrants

WIRED: A Peek Inside the FBI’s Unprecedented January 6 Geofence Dragnet

https://www.wired.com/story/fbi-google-geofence-warrant-january-6/