Michael Williams’ each movement was tracked without his knowledge – even before the fire. In August, Williams, an R&B star employee and alleged rapist R. Kelly, is said to have used explosives to destroy a potential witness’s car. When the police arrested Williams, the evidence cited in an affidavit from the Justice Department came largely from his smartphone and online behavior: text messages to the victim, data from cell phones, and his search history.
The detectives filed a “keyword warrant” on Google, asking the company to provide information about any user who searched for the victim’s address around the time of the arson attack. Police narrowed down the search, identified Williams, and then filed a new search warrant for two Google accounts linked to him. They found other searches: the “detonation properties” of diesel fuel, a list of countries that do not have extradition agreements with the US, and YouTube videos of R. Kelly’s alleged victims speaking to the press. Williams pleaded not guilty.
Data collected for one purpose can always be used for another. Search history data is collected, for example, to refine recommendation algorithms or build online profiles, not to catch criminals. Mostly. Smart devices such as speakers, TVs and wearables keep such precise details of our lives that they have been used both as incriminating and exculpatory evidence in murder cases. Speakers do not need to eavesdrop on crimes or confessions to be useful to investigators. They keep timestamped logs of all requests, along with details of their location and identity. Investigators can access these logs and use them to verify a suspect’s whereabouts or even catch them in a lie.
It’s not just speakers or wearables. In a year when some in Big Tech pledged support for the activists demanding police reform, they still sold devices and delivered apps that allowed the government to access far more intimate data from far more people than traditional warrant and police methods would allow.
A November report in Vice found that users of the popular Muslim Pro app may have sold data about their whereabouts to government agencies. Any number of apps ask for location information, such as the weather or to track your training habits. The Vice report found that X-Mode, a data broker, collected the data from Muslim Pro users for prayer reminders and then sold it to others, including federal agencies. Both Apple and Google have banned developers from transferring data to X-Mode, but it has already collected data from millions of users.
The problem is not just any standalone app, but an overly complicated, under-controlled data collection system. In December, Apple began requiring developers to disclose important details about its privacy policy in a ‘nutrition label’ for apps. Users give “consent” to most forms of data collection when they click “Agree” after downloading an app, but the privacy policy is notoriously incomprehensible and people often don’t know what they agree with.
An easy-to-read summary, such as Apple’s nutrition label, is helpful, but even developers don’t know where the data their apps collect will end up. (Many developers Vice contacted admitted that they didn’t even know X-Mode could access user data.)
The pipeline between commercial and state surveillance is growing as we use more devices that are always on and serious privacy concerns are alleviated with a click of ‘I agree’. The nationwide debate on police and racial equality this summer brought this silent collaboration to great relief. Despite lagging diversity figures, indifference to white nationalism and mistreatment of non-white workers, several tech companies rushed to provide public support for Black Lives Matter and rethink their ties to law enforcement.
Amazon, which pledged millions to racial equity groups this summer, pledged to interrupt (but not stop) sales of facial recognition technology to the police after years of defending the practice. But the company also noted an increase in police requests for user data, including the internal logs kept by its smart speakers.