Nevada Police Can Now Track Cellphones Without a Warrant

Source: Slashdot

Background

“Nevada quietly signed an agreement earlier this year with a company that collects location data from cellphones, allowing police to track a device virtually in real time,” reports the Associated Press. “All without a warrant.”

Fog Data Science Tool

The software from Fog Data Science, adopted in January through a Nevada Department of Public Safety contract, pulls information from smartphone apps to let state investigators identify the location of mobile devices.

• The state is allowed more than 250 queries a month using the tool.
• It enables officers to track a device’s location over long stretches of time and view what Fog calls “patterns of life,” according to company documents from 2022.
• The analysis can help deduce where and when people work and live, with whom they associate, and what places they visit, according to privacy experts.

Traditionally, police must obtain a warrant from a judge to access cellphone location information—a process that can take days or weeks. While cellphone users may be aware that they share their location through apps such as Google Maps, critics say few realize that such information can be accessed by police without a warrant.

Other Nevada Agencies

Other agencies in Nevada have used technology similar to Fog. In 2013, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department acquired a cell‑site simulator that mimics cellphone towers and can sweep up signals from entire areas to track individuals, with some models capable of intercepting texts and calls. Police have not released detailed information about the technology since then.

Opt‑Out Option

Fog Data Science maintains a web page that allows individuals to opt out of all their data sets.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.