“Geofence warrants,” which allow law enforcement to get location data across a wide area, have become commonplace in recent years.
The change doesn’t prevent the government from getting information on a specific user by demanding their full account details, the Google employee said. But investigators can no longer hand over some coordinates and a timeframe, and compel Google to give it either identifying data or metadata on all users within those parameters.
Google Dragnets Harvested Phone Data Across 13 Kenosha Protest Acts Of Arson
… the warrants reveal that the Google dragnets ordered across Kenosha in the days after the protests were much broader than previously thought. They also indicate the Kenosha riot Google geofences had the potential to harvest data on innocent protesters and residents, information that was then provided to the U.S. government. Within the warrants, it’s evident that people not involved in the arson were near the crime scenes.
