A dragnet is any set of coordinated measures for catching criminals. Examples include traffic stops and widespread DNA testing. In today’s technological world, dragnets have become digital and law enforcement have adopted a more tech-savvy way to operate. “Digital dragnets” are used to collect information for ongoing investigations by searching digital devices like cell phones, tablets, laptops, desktop computers, and even devices like pacemakers, hearing aids, and smartwatches. Geofence warrants give police the authority to track devices and their users. For example, detectives can mine information from location-enabled smartphones and find whether they were present within a specific area, during a specific time-frame.
In an article in the New York Times, it was revealed that Google has collected location data from Android devices, iPhone, and other Apple products that have Google applications installed, and has given them to the police upon request.The location data is maintained in what Google calls the Sensorvault, which holds decade-old location from countless devices across the globe. If you can not remember where you were 10 years ago, Google will know--and so might the police. This data focuses on specific areas and times per device. Then, it gives each device an identification number for detectives to track movement patterns specific to a crime. Once the dataset is narrowed down to a potential list of suspects, Google then reveals the device’s user information. To law enforcement, digital dragnets are a goldmine: geofence warrants allow them to pinpoint location data relevant to any investigation. The 2018 Carpenter v. United States Supreme Court opinion held that police must hold a warrant to access geolocation information from telephone companies. Yet, this has not discouraged law enforcement from seeking the information. According to the New York Times, the use of geofence warrants by the police rises each year, averaging around “180 requests” in one week according to one employee interviewed.
IMPLICATIONS FOR DIGITAL RIGHTS
Once a technology is created with the ability for surveillance, it is only a matter of time before it falls into the hands of law enforcement. Yet, digital dragnets represent a new danger. Geofence warrants have been used to investigate a myriad of crimes from bank robberies, arson, terrorism, murder, and sexual assault. However, digital dragnets can have erroneous implications on people’s lives, since a person’s presence at crime scene is only circumstantial evidence. Even if a person wrongly accused is later released, time spent under police detention puts at risk their employment or future stability. In the Times article, one victim of digital dragnets, detained in police custody, lost several months recovering from his arrest. He lost his job after the incident and his car was repossessed, not to mention breaching his digital privacy.
As recognised by the 2018 US Supreme Court Carpenter v United States , geodata functions as “an intimate window into a person's life, revealing not only his particular movements, but through them his ‘familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations.’” Unlike traditional dragnets, the police do not need any particular individual or device to move the investigation, the primary suspect becomes the location. Every individual with a device in a specific area during the time of the crime instantly becomes a suspect, simply because their information is being shared to Google. When a police investigation is prompted by such circumstantial evidence, the probability of innocent people becoming implicated are high.
CONCLUSION
Data has grown exponentially over the last decade. And is increasingly being exploited. Data as evidence, data as advertising, data as filtering— these are just examples of how our digital footprints are being used for purposes beyond our expectations. As consumers become more digitally literate and privacy-conscious, tech giants like Facebook are under public and political scrutiny. There are calls for stricter regulation of the tech industry and these calls have been heard across the world. As COVID 19 accelerates the digital revolution, we need stricter measures to regulate government access to our digital data, and how that data is used.
Mayowa is a final year Honours Politics student with a certificate in Computing. As an aspiring technology lawyer, she is passionate about internet governance, digital innovation and believes that technology should be used to create an equitable future. When not writing, she can be found compiling JavaScript.