Correct.

Google moved to finally address this after the press started focusing on how hording location data could put women who visited reproductive healthcare clinics in legal jeopardy.

> Privacy advocates fear Google will be used to prosecute abortion seekers

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/11/1110391316/google-data-aborti...

> but cell tower data isn't going to be as accurate as GPS

My knowledge in this topic is not deep, but cell precision should be pretty accurate, because modern cell tower areas are much smaller, then to have well tuned beamformer it need to have relative precise angles between antennas and know signal travel time (distance). I think it should achieve something 30 or 15 meter precision (doing assumption that distance is accurate in 50/100ns order)

> Only two of these companies actually needs your location data to function, it's Uber and Lyft.

I disagree that they need my location data. I am perfectly capable of telling them the location where I want a pick-up, and they are perfectly capable of imposing penalties if I incorrectly report it. Just like happened with cabs in the old days, who were somehow able to pick me up without real-time location tracking.

(Not to say that you shouldn't be able to just turn on location tracking if that's what you want to do, but there's no reason that they can't function without it.)

> but cell tower data isn't going to be as accurate as GPS

Worth noting that 6G MIMO beamforming requires being able to calculate incredibly accurate location information in order to tune the signal towards your device. I don't know enough to be able to speak more in depth about this, but my guess would be that the adage of cell AP based aGPS is likely to be able to surface far more accurate device location than before.

If Google had decided to move on this back when people first started being falsely accused of crimes based on geofence data, they might be more deserving of credit.

For instance, in 2018:

> Avondale Man Sues After Google Data Leads to Wrongful Arrest for Murder

https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/google-geofence-locatio...

From a factual standpoint it's good to acknowledge that pro-privacy work. From a standpoint of overall evaluating the actions, goals, incentives, and impacts of the company, they mean basically nothing. They are a surveillance advertising company, they will never, and can never, have a positive impact on privacy or human rights. To do so would destroy them.

FWIW, I think Google is overly-hated, but it's hard to frame them as a bleeding-heart altruist. Much like Apple and Microsoft, they have every incentive to work with the government and basically no obligation to individual consumers. It feels likely that these decisions are made to cover their own ass, and not out of overwhelming respect for Android users.

They don't get credit for this particular thing because many, many users lost years of their location data in the transition, and most of the rest had theirs corrupted. It was a poorly-executed transition that screwed a lot of people, so even they themselves don't tout it much.

This position is insanely illiberal. This isn't about your individual safety, or how willing you as an individual are to abdicate your right to privacy. It's about the knock-on effect of living under panopticon conditions, the chilling effect, the loss of trust, and the nearly unlimited potential for abuse. This individualistic attitude makes it so easy to divide and conquer each and every one of your rights and protections, and will leave you less free as an individual than if you were willing to look at the bigger picture and stand up for rights you don't personally care about.

Most people don't have your luxury of not worrying about government overreach.

It sure would have been useful for governments in the South to grab the location data of enslaved people trying to escape—would they, like the average user today, have known to turn off these settings?

It's great for Texas to buy data from brokers about women trying to access reproductive healthcare across state lines from apps carelessly sharing it. The courts don't pose a risk to you until the law changes and suddenly they do.

This is about the government getting data through a loophole that violates the 4th amendment—the difference between a society that collects everything and presumes guilt, and one that targets specific people when they're suspected of a specific crime.

The problem is, unfortunately, those data lakes are in the category "safe until they aren't." Germany has some of the most restrictive data collection laws in the European sphere, for example, because they know that the courts (and executive) don't pose a risk to most Germans... Until suddenly they do, and the only defense is not having aggregated the data in the first place.

To be clear, no disagreement with your self-risk-assessment, and reasonable people can disagree on where their paranoia threshold is.

No, I did not. Listen for yourself.

Later the same question was put to the government, and they admitted the same: under the government's theory a warrant would not be needed.

Here's the text of the fourth amendment. Could you explain how "scope" and "incentives" are relevant distinguishing factors under that?

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

As relevant here, there's two pieces. The threshold requirement is some sort of ownership. The right exists with respect to "their persons, houses, papers, and effects." Assuming digital data constitutes "papers," the accused has to show that it's "their" papers. The hypothetical you're responding to compares the bank's camera footage with the cell phone company's location information. Those seem indistinguishable for that prong.

You have a reasonable argument that "scope" and "incentives" are relevant to the second prong of what's "unreasonable." But you don't get there if you don't get past the first prong, right?

>Security cameras around a bank only track stuff within a field of view from the bank. A cell geofence could be millions of people if it's drawn in midtown.

Given the ubiquity of security cameras they can just canvas local businesses and ask them to give it up. Given that warrants are involved, they can't even refuse.

This is an excellent point and I largely agree. I do wonder though: do we have a reasonable expectation of privacy when using Google mobile services?

> You're presupposing there's a valid argument for the other side.

How about this part of the amendment?

> "The right of the people to be secure in their persons against unreasonable searches shall not be violated"

Isn't treating people like suspects (investigating them, searching their belongings, tracking them, etc.) merely because a third party claimed (and of course GPS is never inaccurate) that they passed within some vague proximity of a crime scene a violation of their security in their persons? Do you really have reasonable suspicion that every individual among the dozens (or more) you dragged into your search may have committed a crime if it's clear the others are there for unrelated reasons?

Well this court has never overturned decisions made 50 years ago.

> You're presupposing there's a valid argument for the other side.

Typically a good presupposition when the Supreme Court decides to hear the case.

Cell tower info isn't at issue here.

Ah, you're a bit confused about the case the court is hearing. This is explcitly not about telco basestation records. It is about the records for location data recorded on the smart phones of individuals. GPS recorded on their personal property, not multi-lateration from telco owned third party property. It's all very accessible if you give it a listen. It's streaming live on youtube.

If you take the 4th Amendment to specifically and solely bar inconveniencing property owners without a warrant, then you are arguing that the 4th Amendment is a water sandwich. When the 4th Amendment was actually written, it was not actually possible for the investigative powers of the state to not inconvenience a property holder. But we've been able to violate people's right to privacy without them even knowing for almost a century now.

Furthermore, the last major SCOTUS case regarding this issue[0] had some very interesting dissenting opinions specifically on the question of "Does the 4th Amendment only guarantee property rights". Justice Thomas made the exact same argument you made. Justice Gorsuch took your argument and twisted it inside out. He specifically argued that because the 4th Amendment is a protection on property, the third-party doctrine should be thrown out entirely, and that you should still own your personal information even if you have to lend it to a phone company in order for them to connect you.

So yes, there are valid arguments for the other side, even in the "4A only protects property" regime.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States

> there's a general principle rooted in Roman law

There goes my fucking morning :P

Or they refuse to hear cases that they know will go the way they don't want.

Again the key here is "Due Process".

Im comparing due process with a judges' signature, compared to shit like FLOCK and other non-search warranted processes. And if the warrant was deemed wrongfully granted, the case itself can be dismissed or mistrial.

How much corporate data was just purchased rather than search warranted? Data brokers and parallel construction is a lot larger issue.

And about the cops giving that "someone committed a crime in this area, we need to find the perp" - pig's will always give bullshit reasons. Thats why I went to the judge's determination, rather than oinkers demanding everything and manufacturing whatever they want.

Again, I hope your position here is something more than 'largely academic.' Optimistically it may be, history tells us AT&T Mobile, T-mobile, Verizon, etc (pretty much all the major carriers except perhaps Dish) have been caught selling data for a buck and have still only pledged not to sell to agreggators (not law enforcement). There is incontrovertible evidence major carriers are ready and willing, and indeed have sold this to patrons they can profit from.

In theory your comment may be a rebuttal to the 'largely academic' assertion I made, in practice it's largely a distinction without much difference. Your rebuttal is a pretty remarkable, eccentric claim in the context of the vast majority of telcos that will share the data for a profit (as I put it, 'profit from the patronage [of the police]'). Whether the request comes in the form of a warrant -- again -- largely academic in such case. Your assertion requires some strong data to overcome the evidence to the contrary, if it is intended as a rebuttal.

It's also worth noting illegally executed warrants don't stop you from getting the data. I've had cops force a hospital to search me before, then get the warrant actually signed after they did it. It didn't stop the hospital from executing the warrant, it just means they evidence couldn't be directly used against me. That's another lever they have, illegally execute a warrant, get the evidence they can't use in court, then parallel construction. Sure your lawyer can argue "the fruits of this warrant have to be tossed out" but it doesn't mean dick -- they already secretly used it to get other evidence that won't be tossed out.

You are entirely incorrect.

Here is the LLM's summary of the current legal issue at hand:

Attempting to determine the identity of an unknown individual co-located with a victim at a specific time requires a reverse-location query. Because the Supreme Court has not yet established a unified national doctrine for these searches post-Carpenter, lower courts are highly fragmented. Many magistrates systematically refuse to authorize geofence warrants or tower dumps, citing the lack of individualized probable cause for the peripheral, innocent devices swept up in the geographic net.

And indeed, in my case, the police were not able to conduct this geofenced investigation (which would have instantly idenitied the person).