Jul 04, 2022 06:00:00

Objection to 'constitutional violation' in the investigation method to search the history for the person who searched for a specific keyword in Google search

In August 2020, five Senegalese immigrants died in the arson of a house in

Denver , Colorado, USA, and two 17-year-old boys and one 16-year-old boy were charged with arson murder. I was arrested and charged . In the investigation of this case, the police searched for the person who searched for the address of the house that was set on fire by a method called 'reverse keyword search' and arrested him. Was argued.

Police sweep Google searches to find suspects. The tactic is facing its first legal challenge.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-google-reverse-keyword-searches-rcna35749

The arson murder of a Senegalese immigrant in Denver in August 2020 was carried out as 'retaliation against someone who stole a fellow mobile phone,' but he realized that he was actually a mistake. It was found by police investigation. Of the three criminal groups arrested in January 2021, two who were 16 at the time of arrest are being tried as adults.

In the investigation of the case, the criminal group who set the fire on the house was captured by the security camera, but it was difficult to identify the suspect because he was wearing a mask. So the police decided to use a technique called 'reverse keyword search' to find someone who did a Google search for 'the address of the burned house.'

Reverse keyword search is to search the history of searching for 'specific keywords' from the huge search history performed by search engines. In November 2020, the court issued a reverse keyword search warrant, and police demanded that Google submit 'data of the person who searched for the home address from 15 days before the incident to the day of the incident.' In response, Google submitted information about 61 queries with an IP address, and investigators focused on some of the queries and asked Google for more information, arriving at one of the criminal groups. That. From there, it is reported that they investigated the activities of SNS and messaging apps such as Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram, and collected evidence.

A 17-year-old boy's lawyer, who was tried as an adult, said the police investigation was based on the vague intuition that the murderer might have entered an address in the search bar, with billions of Google. He pointed out that he was blindly investigating the search history. This violates

Article 4 of the Constitutional Amendment , which states that 'the rights of the people to ensure the security of their bodies, housing, documents and property against unreasonable searches and arrests and seizures must not be infringed.' He claims the boy's innocence, saying that all evidence should be destroyed.

'People's interests are manifested in Internet search history, and this is your truly private archive of expressions,' said Michael Price, one of the lawyers. 'Search engines such as Google are huge on the Internet. It's a gateway to information and a way for many to find what they want. Queries in these search engines reveal their important privacy that friends, family, and priests can't even tell. I am doing it. '

In recent years, investigations have been conducted to narrow down the criminals by performing a reverse keyword search in various cases, but the other point is that the warrant for the reverse keyword search is 'the police investigating do not know the suspect'. Since it is different from an investigation that requires a warrant, its legitimacy is being questioned. In response to NBC News inquiries, Google refused to provide information or comments on the number of times police requested cooperation in reverse keyword searches in the past.

Also, in June 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned the ' Roe v. Wade case ' that guaranteed the right to abortion, and it became possible to ban abortion by state law. This has raised concerns from technology companies that 'police and prosecutors may obtain search history, location information, and other information indicating abortion plans for Internet users as part of an investigation.' Since reverse keyword search can be a great way to find out who is trying to have an abortion, there is a possibility that reverse keyword search will be widely tried in states where abortion bans have been enacted.

Technology companies are worried that the law punishing abortion 'may allow police to obtain user tracking data' --GIGAZINE

Jennifer Lynch of the Electronic Frontier Foundation , who supports the lawyers' allegations that reverse keyword searches are unconstitutional, said, 'Police are investigating those who appear to be in violation of the law. One way to find criminals. Is to ask Google to pass information on everyone who has searched for Prand Parenthood (an organization that provides services such as abortion surgery) in a particular area. '' Google handing over information in the Colorado case. If allowed or required, state courts that make abortion illegal cannot prevent law enforcement agencies from asking Google to hand over information about such keyword searches. '

Lawyers have accused police of reverse keyword searches as a privacy breach not only for a 17-year-old boy, but for everyone who did a Google search during the relevant 15 days. 'People are asking Google every day for this information, such as'Denver's psychiatrist','near abortion clinic'and'God exists',' said the government. He argued that sifting through Google's vast pile of searches is the same as accessing users' thoughts, concerns, doubts, and fears.