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Thread: Man used app to track his bike rides around Florida neighborhood, which was then given up by Google to police & made him into a suspect

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Man used app to track his bike rides around Florida neighborhood, which was then given up by Google to police & made him into a suspect

    Scary story, and once again reinforces the idea that you should shy away from any tracking apps, plus disable location tracking whenever possible.

    Zachary McCoy has some similarities to me. He has a degree in Computer Science. He has long been wary of online tracking and lack of data privacy, and has taken steps to share little of his personal info online.

    However, he didn't realize a simple bicycle-ride tracking app would almost land him in prison for a burglary he didn't commit.

    Jewelry was stolen from a 97-year-old woman's home in Gainesville, Florida. Nobody was hurt, and the woman never saw the burglars. Still, police were able to obtain a warrant to obtain all location information obtained by Google for cell phones in a radius surrounding her house. The bike tracking app sent its information to Google (presumably for mapping info), which ended up placing McCoy riding by her house three times on the day of the burglary.

    The police did not yet have his name, but were seeking it. At this point, Google sent him a notice that his info was being requested by Google. He panicked and retreated to his parents' house in a different city. While McCoy was a broke restaurant worker, his parents had enough money to hire a good attorney.

    The attorney was able to hold up police from identifying him through various challenges, and after a few months, the point became moot because the police decided he was no longer a suspect.

    McCoy wonders if his parents hadn't hired that attorney for him, if the police would have simply grabbed him as the low-hanging-fruit suspect, and charged him with the burglary.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...e-him-n1151761


    I can actually see both sides of this. If my home were burglarized, I would love it for the police to be able to look at all devices which sent location data near my home on that date, and be able to identify a possible suspect. I would love this ability even more if someone got hurt during a home invasion robbery, or some other violent crime.

    However, this could also lead to an overreliance on such data, false accusations, false charges, and false convictions.

    I thought more about this. I'm big on privacy, and always have been. At the same time, I think privacy sometimes has to take a back seat to crime-solving, especially when the crimes are major.

    I actually believe a middle ground approach would be best. Right now we have little control over which data is collected and where it ends up being sent. Even when we think we have control, we often don't. And often, as noted in the article, data collection permission is buried in "walls of text" ToS you have to agree to in order to use apps.

    I would be for a law which requires all location or data-collecting apps to state exactly what they collect, who it will be sent to, and whether such data can be requested by law enforcement. Then the user would have to explicitly agree before using the app, and this would all have to be clearly stated in a very small amount of text (that is, a few sentences at most).

    Then, if the user agrees, he knows what he's signing up for, and can't bitch as much when this type of thing occurs.

    What do you guys think?

  2. #2
    Diamond Sloppy Joe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    Scary story, and once again reinforces the idea that you should shy away from any tracking apps, plus disable location tracking whenever possible.

    Zachary McCoy has some similarities to me. He has a degree in Computer Science. He has long been wary of online tracking and lack of data privacy, and has taken steps to share little of his personal info online.

    However, he didn't realize a simple bicycle-ride tracking app would almost land him in prison for a burglary he didn't commit.

    Jewelry was stolen from a 97-year-old woman's home in Gainesville, Florida. Nobody was hurt, and the woman never saw the burglars. Still, police were able to obtain a warrant to obtain all location information obtained by Google for cell phones in a radius surrounding her house. The bike tracking app sent its information to Google (presumably for mapping info), which ended up placing McCoy riding by her house three times on the day of the burglary.

    The police did not yet have his name, but were seeking it. At this point, Google sent him a notice that his info was being requested by Google. He panicked and retreated to his parents' house in a different city. While McCoy was a broke restaurant worker, his parents had enough money to hire a good attorney.

    The attorney was able to hold up police from identifying him through various challenges, and after a few months, the point became moot because the police decided he was no longer a suspect.

    McCoy wonders if his parents hadn't hired that attorney for him, if the police would have simply grabbed him as the low-hanging-fruit suspect, and charged him with the burglary.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...e-him-n1151761


    I can actually see both sides of this. If my home were burglarized, I would love it for the police to be able to look at all devices which sent location data near my home on that date, and be able to identify a possible suspect. I would love this ability even more if someone got hurt during a home invasion robbery, or some other violent crime.

    However, this could also lead to an overreliance on such data, false accusations, false charges, and false convictions.

    I thought more about this. I'm big on privacy, and always have been. At the same time, I think privacy sometimes has to take a back seat to crime-solving, especially when the crimes are major.

    I actually believe a middle ground approach would be best. Right now we have little control over which data is collected and where it ends up being sent. Even when we think we have control, we often don't. And often, as noted in the article, data collection permission is buried in "walls of text" ToS you have to agree to in order to use apps.

    I would be for a law which requires all location or data-collecting apps to state exactly what they collect, who it will be sent to, and whether such data can be requested by law enforcement. Then the user would have to explicitly agree before using the app, and this would all have to be clearly stated in a very small amount of text (that is, a few sentences at most).

    Then, if the user agrees, he knows what he's signing up for, and can't bitch as much when this type of thing occurs.

    What do you guys think?
    I agree in theory but we're way past that at this point.

    You want to run through 100+ prompts every time you use a new app, or an app updates, etc approving every which way your data is collected?
    PokerFraudAlert...will never censor your claims, even if they're against one of our sponsors. In addition to providing you an open forum report fraud within the poker community, we will also analyze your claims with a clear head an unbiased point of view. And, of course, the accused will always have the floor to defend themselves.-Dan Druff

  3. #3
    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Doesn't need 100 prompts.

    When I start an app for the first time, the following can pop up:

    "WARNING

    This app collects the following personal information: Advertising ID, location, IP address, pictures, contacts

    We share this data with the following companies: Apple, Google

    This data may be requested by law enforcement via warrant.

    Do you agree to allow this data to be collected and disseminated as above?"


    Once you click YES, then it doesn't ask you again.

  4. #4
    Plutonium Sanlmar's Avatar
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    First, do you have an insurance telemetrics module hoping to get a reduced car insurance rate?

    Don’t mess with my discount.

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