I recently heard a story about a man charged with vandalism or similar–a witness said he’d seen the guy smashing the windows of a car, only it turned out the accused was with friends miles away and he happened to caught on a security camera as well. The reason for the false report was a longstanding beef between the car owner and the other guy.
If you were in a similar situation, is there a way to keep track of yourself to defend against false accusations? What if you were home alone with no other alibi? I think smartphones are trackable, but someone could just leave their phone at home before doing a dirty deed–or at least that’s what a prosecutor could say, especially if she had a witness willing to say (falsely) that they’d seen you.
I guess you could post a series of selfies to some web resource, but you would have to try to capture some independently verifiable event in the background, because location tags can probably be spoofed, so otherwise you could be posting them from somewhere else
On thinking about it… You could voluntarily be fitted with a tracking device similar to that used for people under house arrest, if you could find a way to get that as a service
Even that seems to be of questionable reliability. Apparently I traveled 260 miles in 22 minutes one night to pick up some Slim Chickens in another city.
True, but consider the burden of proof required and the type of investigation performed for accusations of things like vandalism and so forth. Investigators aren’t going to bust out expensive tracking measures and DNA tests for every complaint coming in.
Jon says he saw you today at noon keying his car in town A, no other evidence exists. You deny it and say you were in town B. The police ask the phone company for your smartphone tracking info which is very easy to get, in some places with no warrant required. A phone belong to Jon was actually in town C, while one belonging to you was where you said it was in town B.
With nothing else to go on (as there often isn’t), investigators will probably consider Jon’s claim unreliable (or at least something useful by the defense), and yours more reliable and a reason not to pursue it of they can’t find anything else fairly easily. They won’t start into possible theories of you stealing Jon’s phone and planting yours in someone else’s purse and so forth; there’s no proof for any of that.
So yes, smart phone tracking can very well be used despite it not being conclusive proof of where you were - you could have been there and if that’s all that’s needed to lose the case it might not ever happen.
That’s one way it might work out, but note that in the story I heard there was a (notionally independent) third party witness who identified the (blameless) “vandal.” With a witness I as a prosecutor might be more inclined to rack up an easy win–especially if easily-obtainable cell phone data showed the accused as being in one place for several hours, where it might plausibly be argued that the phone was left precisely for the purpose of providing an alibi.
BUT, let’s not get bogged down in the specifics of this–my question is more general–is there a way to track yourself, if that’s desired? The house arrest device might work, but do they actually track your specific movements or just set off an alarm when you get too far from a designated GPS location?
If you happened to use your cellphone at all during that time, like you answered a call, that would help. Though I suppose they could claim that you had somebody else at home to answer the phone if it rang. Better would be if you actually talked to someone who knows you and could be called as a witness.
They used to work by having a ‘base station’ that communicated with the ankle bracelet. The bracelet transmitter only had a range of about 1 km (0.6 mi) and if it went out of range, an alarm was set off and the base unit phoned in (via land line) to the authorities.
Now, I believe most of them are effectively mobile phone circuitry that depends on GPS coordinates.
Ultimately, any device or software *that you control *that purports to leave a trail is something a hostile prosecutor could try to impeach as unreliable, faked, etc.
The only source for “trustworthy” data is third parties. Such as surveillance cameras belonging to somebody else that you show no evidence of being aware of or of manipulating to your benefit.
The desire to track yourself is so weird that the mere fact some suspect claims he was doing it is almost proof to my suspicious prosecutor mind that it’s simply a fake alibi machine. Having such a thing contributes to my impression of your guilt, not your innocence. No matter what its data may appear to prove.
There are a variety of technologies in use for ankle monitors.
Some are GPS based. But there are still base station units that connect to the ankle monitor via a short range wireless signal. There are problems with both types of technology.
i think the story you’re talking about was one where someone used their Google account with location enabled, and possibly some additional gps enabled app, to prove he was or wasn’t somewhere.
if i recall correctly, and it is the same story you’re talking about, where i saw/ read it was on reddit.
*i personally, intentionally stay logged out of Google, don’t use apps that track me, don’t use the cloud, . . … i could go on. it’s not that i don’t realize just carrying a cell phone negates any real privacy one could hope to have. i just don’t want to participate any further than that.
and to your hypothetical scenario. if someone falsely accuses me of doing something like that to the point I’m charged with a crime, in good time they’ll learn what a rank amateur the first guy was.