Court Records Show Google Gives Keyword Searches of Innocent People to Cops
Free Thought Project
Everyone reading this knows that there are few things on the internet more revealing than their internet search data. It is for this reason that police must seek out a warrant for an actual suspect in order to obtain said data. However, a recently unsealed court document found that government can request such data in reverse order by asking Google to disclose everyone who searched a keyword rather than for information on a known suspect.
To spell it out more clearly, authorities can simply pick a search term and construct a warrant around it without anyone being accused of a crime or being a suspect in a crime, and then Google will simply hand over their data. What could possibly go wrong?
Everyone reading this knows that there are few things on the internet more revealing than their internet search data. It is for this reason that police must seek out a warrant for an actual suspect in order to obtain said data. However, a recently unsealed court document found that government can request such data in reverse order by asking Google to disclose everyone who searched a keyword rather than for information on a known suspect.
To spell it out more clearly, authorities can simply pick a search term and construct a warrant around it without anyone being accused of a crime or being a suspect in a crime, and then Google will simply hand over their data. What could possibly go wrong?