Hacker News Reader

Comment by 4ndrewl | Hacker News Reader

And chances are a large proportion of them have got Google/Apple recording the locations of their devices too. We do it to ourselves these days.

View on HN

I would say there’s a pretty significant difference between something like phone geolocation data, which is not very practical to search, especially for Apple devices, and in any case usually requires at least a superficial level of scrutiny, and a database that any old police officer can just run a query on as and when they feel like it.

They don't need access to your device. The Police can use records from the mobile operators to track device movements.

Yes, they can, however I don't believe this is quite as straightforward as just looking up the data for a particular vehicle on your police computer. Looking up the ANPR data on a vehicle is only marginally more complex than looking up a person's driving license details or similar. My understanding is that in order to do a reverse geofence request, or look up a specific device, it's a lot more complicated, and these days you're only going to get cell site information rather than precise GPS data (as was possible by asking Google in the past).

Well... not entirely true.

Cell Providers will sell data to anyone, then companies like Tectonix GEO[1] will slap a pretty UI on top of that data.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=cq2zuE3ISYU...

Although those searches are recorded, which should act as a deterrent for phishing expeditions.

With the very welcome changes to how Google stores location history, they will no longer be capable of answering geofence warrants. The cell carrier themselves (Verizon / T-Mobile / BT / Orange etc) can still provide some tower logon information but I'm not sure if they are storing E911 GPS info.

Don't forget Ring capturing every time you enter or leave your home.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com