JUL 28, 2019
How police might access your Lyft, Tinder and Google accounts in a criminal investigation
Buried in the terms of service agreements people accept when they sign up for most smartphone apps is a clause that says their personal information could be shared with law enforcement.
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“Everyone has basically given up their right to privacy on the internet,” Giacalone said. “You trade your privacy for the convenience of using these apps.”
Recently in Utah, Salt Lake City police worked with the ride-hailing company Lyft to discover where 23-year-old University of Utah student
Mackenzie Lueck went on the night of her disappearance and to rule out the driver as a suspect. Police also analyzed Lueck’s social media and dating app accounts, according to news reports. Eventually, law enforcement located Lueck’s body and arrested a man who is suspected of killing her.
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Thanks to a
privacy law passed earlier this year, Utah is one of a minority of states, including Washington and California, that require police to obtain a warrant to access stored data, like messages and photos, or location information from tech companies and cell service providers. Elsewhere, officers are able to request and view private data without a warrant, as long as providers cooperate.
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While states like Utah, as well as many tech companies, have rules that require police to file a subpoena or obtain a warrant in order to access personal data, there are no real limits on how much information police can request. Rather, police self-restrict their own data collection based on time constraints, said Gary Ernsdorff, a senior prosecutor in Washington state who has sought data from Lyft, Uber, Facebook and Google.
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Facebook and Instagram require police to obtain a warrant in order to see the stored contents of an account, such as messages, photos, comments and location information. But police can get other information like your name, address and telephone number, credit card information and IP address (used to identify the computer used to sign into an account), with a subpoena, which, unlike a warrant, does not require a demonstration of probable cause of suspicion.
Other companies have rules that are more vague. Snapchat’s says, “We may share information about you if we reasonably believe that disclosing the information is needed to comply with any valid legal process, governmental request or applicable law, rule or regulation.”
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When it comes to Google location data, law enforcement may request data from hundreds of accounts that appeared in a certain area during a certain time, but that data will be anonymized until investigators identify a handful of accounts that are of interest.
“We don’t want to be intruding on private matters that are not evidence of a crime. Because we understand the privacy concerns,” said Ernsdorff.
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Ernsdorff said he has tried to reduce his own data footprint and realized it's nearly impossible to live in the modern world and avoid using the everyday technologies that gather personal data.
"Even very wary people are still leaving a trail," Ernsdorff said. He simply advises people to be aware of the information they are giving away.
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