Supreme Court Agrees To Decide Major Privacy Case On Cellphone Data (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a major case on privacy rights in the digital age that will determine whether police officers need warrants to access past cellphone location information kept by wireless carriers. The justices agreed to hear an appeal brought by a man who was arrested in 2011 as part of an investigation into a string of armed robberies at Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores in the Detroit area over the preceding months. Police helped establish that the man, Timothy Carpenter, was near the scene of the crimes by securing cell site location information from his cellphone carrier. At issue is whether failing to obtain a warrant violates a defendant's right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment. The information that law enforcement agencies can obtain from wireless carriers shows which local cellphone towers users connect to at the time they make calls. Police can use historical data to determine if a suspect was in the vicinity of a crime scene or real-time data to track a suspect.

Comments

Re:Wait what?

[ShanghaiBill]

Why the fuck is the past location data even kept?

Marketing. If the data shows you go into a barbershop every other Tuesday, then Monday evening would be a great time to popup a coupon for a competing barber.

If you want the convenience of popup ads on your mobile device, then you have to accept police surveillance along with it. I think we can all agree that the tradeoff is worth it.

 

Re:Two issues which people confuse

[Sarten-X]

Funny you should ask, since I used to work in medical data.

Your doctor owns the data, but it's protected by explicit PHI laws, most notably HIPAA. Under HIPAA, your doctor's practice has significant freedom in how they can use or release that data to HIPAA-compliant partners. Your acknowledgement of that practice is one of the many forms they have you fill out prior to receiving treatment.

They need individual warrants in Canada too

[WillAffleckUW]

Both in Canada and the US, the Constitutions preclude these unwarranted searches and seizures of people who just happen to be in the vicinity (many many miles) of a cell tower, or a fake cell tower in this case.

And the lies that they exclude your information if you're not the target have been proven over and over again.