Google is providing data to police based on search keywords, says court records

There are a few things as personal as a person’s search history, and police usually need a warrant on a known suspect to claim that sensitive information. But a recently a surprising court document has been found that says investigators can ask for such data in reverse order by requesting Google to disclose everyone user who searched a particular keyword rather than for details on a known suspect.

In August, police caught Michael Williams, a colleague of singer and accused sex offender R. Kelly, for reportedly setting up fire to a witness’ car in Florida. The law enforcements booked Williams for the arson, as well as witness tampering, after sending a search warrant to Google that demanded information on “users who had looked for the address of the residence close in time to the arson.”

On Tuesday, court filing was disclosed. Robert Snell, a Detroit News reporter tweeted about the filing after it was revealed.

Court records demonstrated that Google supplied the IP addresses of users who searched for the arson victim’s address, which police linked to a phone number belonging to Williams. According to court documents, police then utilized the phone number details to pinpoint the location of Williams’ device close to the arson.

The actual warrant given to Google is still sealed, but the findings give another example of a controversial trend of data requests to the search engine giant in which investigators ask data on a large segment on users rather than a specific request on a single suspect.

The executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, Albert Fox Cahn said, “”This ‘keyword warrant’ breaches the Fourth Amendment conditions on police surveillance.” “When a court orders a data dump of every person who searched for a specific term or address, it’s likely unconstitutional.”

The keyword warrants are much like geo-fence warrants, in which police send requests to Google for info on all devices logged in at a specific area and time. Google got 15 times more geofence warrant requests in 2018 in comparison to 2017, and five times more in 2019 compared with 2018. The increase in reverse requests from police has bothered Google employees, as per internal reports.

Google cleared on Thursday that it works to safeguard the privacy of its users while also helping law enforcement.

“We require a warrant and push to narrow the scope of these particular demands when overly broad, including by objecting in court when appropriate,” Google’s director of law enforcement and information security, Richard Salgado, said in a statement. “These data demands represent less than 1% of total warrants and a small fraction of the overall legal demands for user data that we currently receive.”

The company denied revealing how many keyword warrants it’s received in the past three years.

Worries about search warrants

Reverse search warrants such as geofence warrants are being largely protested across the country for violating civil rights. Lawmakers in New York have proposed legislation to make these searches illegal, while in Illinois, a federal judge found that the practice evades the Fourth Amendment.

These keyword warrants aren’t a new thing. In 2017, Minnesota police had also sent a similar warrant to Google seeking information including name, telephone number, Social Security numbers, address, and IP addresses linked to people who searched a specific term in a fraud case.

Todd Spodek, the lawyer representing Williams, said he prepares to challenge the validity of the keyword warrant issued in June. He hasn’t read the document yet but said he wants to argue that it infringes Williams’ rights.

Spodek said he’s come across more of these kinds of warrants being issued in criminal investigations and worries it could lead to wrongful accusations in the future.

“Think of the consequences in the future if everybody who searched something in the comfort of their own home was subject to interviews by federal agents,” Spodek said. “Someone could be interested in knowing how people die a certain way or how drug deals happen, and it could be misinterpreted or used inappropriately.”

Normally, solid cause is required for search warrants, which are linked with a suspect or address. The requests for information are closely tailored to a particular individual. Keyword warrants seem against that concept by providing data related to large segment of people associated with searching for specific phrases.

When investigators relate Williams to the arson through the keyword warrant, they sent Google one more warrant asking for his account details, finding that he searched phrases like “where can i buy a .50 custom machine gun,” “witness intimidation” and “countries that don’t have extradition with the United States.”

This information was unveiled after issuing a warrant on Williams, rather than the other way around, in which investigators found for everyone who typed those phrases in the search engine.

Google is also dealing with criticism for obeying broad data requests such as geofence and keyword searches.

“If Google stored data in a way that was truly de-identified, then they also couldn’t give it to the government,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s surveillance litigation director Jennifer Lynch said. “Google’s not remodeling their system or changing their practices in a way that could fend these kinds of searches.”

Because of how keyword warrants work, there’s problem that innocent people’s online activities will be looked upon in the requests. People have been arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time because of geofence warrants, and attorneys are now cautious it could happen for searching on Google.

Both Lynch and Spodek said reverse search warrants are being used more and more frequently by police departments, and call the practice unconstitutional.