The human rights organization Electronic Frontier and the American Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) demand that the police be prohibited from asking Google for users’ search history for investigations. Human rights activists are confident that this violates people’s right to privacy of their personal data.
According to Bloomberg, the organizations brought this requirement to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
According to court documents, in 2016, Pennsylvania police investigating a rape case asked for information about who had recently searched for the victim’s name.
The company provided the IP address of the user, a correctional officer who had Googled the woman’s address twice shortly before the incident. The suspect was later arrested and convicted.
Last September, Bloomberg Businessweek published an investigation reporting that US police are increasingly requesting more information from Google, including about non-violent crimes and about users not directly related to them.
Human rights activists and lawyers are convinced that the so-called “keyword search warrant” may violate the right to privacy of innocent people.
Additionally, the plaintiffs fear that the use of search data, as well as the geolocation of users, could be used against women from states where abortion is prohibited who travel to another region to terminate their pregnancies.
Author:
Akhmed Sadulayev
Source: RB
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
