What Limits to Police Cellphone Tracking?

What Limits to Police Cellphone Tracking?

cellphone tracking

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Police departments across the USA quietly use a highly secretive technology developed for the military that can track the whereabouts of suspects by using the signals constantly emitted by their cellphones. At least 72 state and local law enforcement departments in 24 states plus 13 federal agencies use the devices, according to voanews.com, including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Las Vegas.

Civil liberties and privacy groups are increasingly raising objections to the suitcase-sized devices known as StingRays or cell site simulators that can sweep up cellphone data from an entire neighborhood by mimicking cell towers. Police can determine the location of a phone without the user even making a call or sending a text message.

Some versions of the technology can even intercept texts and calls, or pull information stored on the phones.

Part of the problem, privacy experts say, is the devices can also collect data from anyone within a small radius of the person being tracked. And law enforcement goes to great lengths to conceal usage, in some cases, offering plea deals rather than divulging details on the StingRay.

The police departments that use the devices must take the unusual step of signing nondisclosure agreements overseen by the FBI. An FBI spokeswoman said the agreements, which often involve the Harris Corporation, a defense contractor that makes the devices, are intended to prevent the release of sensitive law enforcement information to the general public. But the agreements don’t prevent an officer from telling prosecutors the technology was used in a case.

In New York, use of the technology was virtually unknown to the public until last year when the New York Civil Liberties Union forced the disclosure of records showing the NYPD used the devices more than 1,000 times since 2008. That included cases in which the technology helped catch suspects in kidnappings, rapes, robberies, assaults and murders. It has even helped find missing people.