Cell Phones, Missing Persons, and Privacy

An anonymous reader sends in a Seattle PI story about the use of cell phone records in missing-person cases. Typically, phone companies turn over location information to police without a warrant if one of their customers is reported missing; the police need only to state that the person may be in danger. In any criminal case, a warrant from a judge would be required before the telcos divulged any information. While in some poster-child cases lives have been saved as a result of this practice, it seems like a class-action lawsuit waiting to happen. It is not a crime to go missing.

Comments

It's not a crime to go missing... BUT

[TubeSteak]

The police can dispense with warrants and procedure in cases where they believe immenent harm is possible.

Also, since we're reading about this in the "Seattle PI", it's worth mentioning that suicide is illegal in the State of Washington and the phone they were tracking belonged to a suicidal young man.

Re:It is not a crime to go missing.

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

A few weeks ago I had to renew my CPR certification. We had to go over "complied consent". I imagine the same concept applies to cases like this. If the situation is life or death and the victim or their guardians do not decline, it is assumed that they would want any and all help within the ability of the rescuer.

Low Standard for "Missing"

[apok04]

In California (my home state), the standard for a missing person is fairly low:

In California, a missing person is someone whose whereabouts is unknown to the reporting party. This includes any child who may have run away, been taken involuntary or may be in need of assistance. It includes a child illegally taken, held or hidden by a parent or non-parent family member (See California Penal Code Sections 277-280).

There is NO waiting period for reporting a person missing. All California police and sheriffs' departments must accept any report, including a report by telephone, of a missing person, including runaways, without delay and will give priority to the handling of the report.

Seems to me that this opens the door for exploitation by many people, including law enforcement, since the police have to accept any and all reports, without any burden of proof on the part of the reporter (while it is illegal to file a false report, the standard is whether or not the reporter knew that the reportee was missing - sort of like he said/she said). But we have to think of the children!

Re:It is not a crime to go missing.

[smolloy]

How do you decide i have been missing against my will? You can't. That's why they have to make a judgment call, and, in many cases, they will attempt to err on the side of caution

By your logic i must inform the local police office about my whereabouts all the time. Not at all. By his logic, if you go missing, they'll try to find you using your cell phone. If you don't want to be found, just switch it off. If you want to ensure your privacy, don't carry a cell phone at all.

Didn't the Gestapo have the same requirement in occupied France? I'm pretty surprised how quickly Godwin was invoked here!!

Re:It is not a crime to go missing.

[hughk]

I believe this the approach of the Salvation Army, who, although a God Squad do some good work amongst the down and outs and operate a very good missing persons service. Their approach on finding someone is to tell them they are being looked for and by whom and then to ask if it is ok to pass back the news that the person is in good health and then at the 'missing' person's choice, put them in contact with the person reporting them missing.

The thing is that the Sally Army do a personal visit to check things are ok. A mobile company calling you to find out whether you want to be found is too liable to abuse. That is, you could be kidnapped by a cult and forced to say you were ok and nobody would be the wiser.

Re:It is not a crime to go missing.

[dmatos]

It's also much more distracting to hear only one side of a conversation. It's like looking at a picture of one half of a face. Your brain can't help but devote effort to try to fill in the other half.

If you can hear both sides of the conversation, it's much easier to let it fall to the background.