The tech giant Google thatIs a Dragnet for the Police records people’s locations worldwide. Now, investigators are using it to find suspects and witnesses near crimes, running the risk of snaring the innocent.

One of the elements supporting this claim is the case of a murder investigation that occurred last year in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona.

The data provided by Google is contained in a database called Sensorvault, which contains detailed location records of hundreds of millions of phones worldwide. The information provided by Google not only helps police find suspects, but may also lead them to meet witnesses who may have seen or heard something important during the commission of a crime.

In a press release, Richard Salgado, director of law enforcement and information security at Google, said: “We vigorously protect the privacy of our users while supporting the important work of the security forces. order. We have created a new process for these specific requests, designed to meet our legal obligations while reducing the scope of the disclosed data and producing only information identifying specific users when required by law. “

Source : New York Times