The recent
expansion of Google’s Timeline feature can provide investigators
unprecedented access to users’ location history data, allowing them
in many cases to track a person’s every move over the course of
years, according to a report recently circulated to law enforcement.
“The
personal privacy implications are pretty clear but so are the law
enforcement applications,” according to the document, titled
“Google Timelines: Location Investigations Involving Android
Devices,” which outlines the kind of information investigators
can now subpoena.
The Timeline
allows users to look back at their daily movements on a map; that
same information is also potentially of interest to law enforcement.
“It is now possible to submit a legal demand to Google for
location history greater than six months old,” the report says.
“This could revitalize cold cases and potentially help solve
active investigations.”
The report
was written by a law enforcement trainer, Aaron Edens, and provides
detailed guidance on the wealth of historic location information
available through Google Timeline and how to request it. A copy of of
the document was obtained by The Intercept.
The
expansion of Google’s Timeline feature, launched in July 2015,
allows investigators to request detailed information about where
someone has been — down to the longitude and latitude — over the
course of years. Previously, law enforcement subpoenas to the company
could only yield recent location information.
The 15-page
document includes what information its author, an expert in mobile
phone investigations, found being stored in his own Timeline:
historic location data — extremely specific data — dating back to
2009, the first year he owned a phone with an Android operating
system. Those six years of data, he writes, show the kind of
information that law enforcement investigators can now subpoena from
Google.
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