Lets say a body is discovered in a remote area. No real clues were left behind. In an effort to narrow down the search can LE go to Google and request location services data to see whose cell phone was in the area recently? This is different than tracking pinging from cell towers. That, I believe, still requires a warrant.
If not, why not? Seems like a legit use of the technology at this point in time. If only one or two devices were even remotely near the victim at the estimated time of death you’d only have to interview two people to start with.
They can request it, but Google has more than enough lawyers I’m sure to say they shouldn’t turn over any information about individuals without a warrant or court order of some sort.
Remote is a relative term. Where I live remote means no cell phone access at all. And in some cases the topography means no real GPS fix with a real GPS receiver, either.
This of course presumes that one service provider has all the answers. I can see numerous flaws - people who know turn off their cell anywhere near the crime scene; innocent passers-by get targeted. Google doesn’t see everyone who is in the area; some use a different phone or provider, have location services turned off, etc.
In real-life scenarios like this, most companies will say “get a warrant”. Apple or Google or AT&T or Verizon or OnStar don’t want to become known as the company that snitches on paying customers. (Sort of like how Motel 6 Called ICE when people with Hispanic names checked in.) if they can persuade a judge this is a real piece of serious evidence, rather than a fishing expedition, the judge may issue a warrant.
But I would imagine for a warrant (IANAL - any legal eagles here?) the cops would have to show why they are pretty definitely going to get their man rather than just a bucket full of random names - i.e. show probably cause why the person you are looking for is definitely going to be in this pile of data you get back. Especially, if they have to go to more than one provider, then odds are the data is NOT definite for that one provider. More likely they would have a suspect or three, find out which provider(s) they used, and ask for a warrant for records on that particular provider for that specific set of phone numbers.
It’s my understanding that every android phone can be located by Google as long as it’s turned on. By using GPS and the nearest cell tower. Even if you don’t have cell coverage, it’ll report back to Google your gps locations when you do get back into coverage. I’m under the impression Google has all your location data, not the carriers. Well, the carriers might also have this data, but one stop shopping via Google would be easier.
Not only can they do it, they have done it (not with Google per say - they used the service providers, but I know of something I’ll touch on after).
The case I’m thinking of involved a series of bank robberies. I think they may have been quite a distance a part and if memory serves - more than two. They got warrants and pulled all the cell phone numbers that were in each of the robbery locations and I believe they ended up with one number when comparing all locations. If it wasn’t one number it was easy for them to narrow it down. If memory serves they tried to challenge it but it was upheld.
I can think of a Google case. It involves Child pornography. The search (my guess is on an,ongoing basis) everyone’s gmail for child porn. It’s illegal for Google to collect child porn, so how do they do it? The take each file and do a hash on it. This is a one way mathmatical trick that turns a string of zeros and ones into a smaller character combo that can be compared more easily. If it’s long enough the chance of accidental collision is ridiculously small. So the Feds have a database of child porn they turn into hashes and they have Google run the comparison.
Pretty straightforward : get all the cell phones numbers that were reasonably in the proximity of the building where the crime took place at the estimated time it happened. Do that for each of the crime scenes. Easy peasy, one number is in common and it belonged to the killer, who didn’t use a burner.
Note that this requires several crimes that appear to be committed by the same person and you need to know approximately when and where they happened.
Far more advanced correlations are possible. How about looking at every major crime you have a location for and haven’t solved in a city, and looking to see if certain numbers are present more often than chance?
Or just going ahead and monitoring everyone’s location, all the time.