Law enforcement responded to a 911 call last October from an Eden Prairie woman who had just been robbed in her home. Her husband, Oukham Oudavanh, 63, suffered a heart attack and died at the scene, and the suspects made off with $50,000 belonging to the couple's popular food markets, Shuang Hur in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Police wanted Google to identify all mobile devices in the area of the crime scene over a 6-hour time window. They also wanted location data for every cellphone in dense, urban areas surrounding the food market businesses over a 33-hour window.
If a device's location, movement, or timing established probable cause, investigators could go back to court and get a second warrant ordering Google to reveal the name of the cellphone's owner.
When Google provides location data in response to one of these warrants, police "put that location data into the software and then map out a 'profile of life' of where they go, where they travel, and where they were the night of the crime," Bruley said.
It presented a tough probable cause analysis, and police were asking for a lot: the identity of the phone's owner, billing information, phone numbers, and two months' of their web browsing history and location data. Google was also put under a non-disclosure order, restricted from telling the user that this information would be divulged for at least six months.
Asked earlier this week whether that suggests Brooklyn Park police got a data dump on the wrong person, Bruley cautioned against assuming that, saying that investigations take time. On Thursday, Bruley said police have closed the investigation, because Google ultimately could not track the data point.
So, whenever a crime happens, the police can now get location data from everyone that was near the scene. If your profile of life
fit their criteria for "suspicious" they will also get massive amounts of your personal data. This is regardless of whether you are innocent (as was the person who's data they got in this case) or not. And you will never know any of this is happening. This is similar to what I've predicted in Technological slavery, but I was mostly thinking about the data from intelligent cameras, not cellphones. But that will come soon enough as well - they will use every advantage the technological slavery system provides them. Of course this will be marketed as a triumph in regards to safety, even though "crime" is arbitrary and can change anytime at the whim of the rulers of this world.