The US local police use a large-scale surveillance tool ``Fog Reveal'' that tracks the user's location information via a smartphone application, and it is clear from the user manual how far detailed tracking is possible
A study by the
Inside Fog Data Science, the Secretive Company Selling Mass Surveillance to Local Police | Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/inside-fog-data-science-secretive-company-selling-mass-surveillance-local-police
Fog Revealed: A Guided Tour of How Cops Can Browse Your Location Data | Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://www.eff.org/ro/deeplinks/2022/08/fog-revealed-guided-tour-how-cops-can-browse-your-location-data
Tech tool offers police 'mass surveillance on a budget' | AP News
https://apnews.com/article/technology-police-government-surveillance-d395409ef5a8c6c3f6cdab5b1d0e27ef
Here Is the Manual for the Mass Surveillance Tool Cops Use to Track Phones
https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7v34a/fog-reveal-local-cops-phone-location-data-manual
EFF technical staff Bennett Cypher obtained a user manual for a tool called 'Fog Reveal' used by local police in the United States through a public records request. Fog Reveal is a surveillance tool that collects data from smartphones and tracks their location using technology that was relatively unknown until recently. Police say they use Fog Reveal in murder and other investigations, but the Associated Press reports that related court filings 'rarely' mention the use of Fog Reveal.
Mr. Cypher has provided the obtained Fog Reveal user manual to the technology media Motherboard, and Motherboard has published this user manual.
Cypher explains why he released the user manual: ``The Fog Reveal user manual is an important window into how police can access and use data on citizens.The user manual uses Fog Reveal to track any person. 'The user manual is a record that should be made public so that the public can hold surveillance companies and law enforcement to account.'
Fog Reveal is sold by a company called Fog Data Science based in Virginia, USA. According to the Associated Press, Fog Reveal has a company called Venntel as a data partner, but the detailed relationship has not been clarified. According to Motherboard, Venntel sources global advertising data from parent company Gravy Analytics, which may be used for Fog Reveal. Note that app developers sometimes enter into agreements to sell users' location information to third parties, and Venntel sells user location information to government agencies such as Customs and Border Protection in its own surveillance products.
Fog Data Science appears to be focused on selling Fog Reveal to local and state law enforcement, according to EFF and Associated Press research. The Associated Press reports that Fog Data Science's customers 'include a wide range of local law enforcement agencies, from suburban Southern California to rural North Carolina.'
According to the user manual for Fog Reveal obtained by Mr. Cypher, ``In the past (*information is hidden and illegible*), or by interviewing witnesses, checking surveillance camera footage, checking travel records, etc., a specific person could be identified. That's why I've spent a lot of time tracking it.With Fog Reveal, that information will be revealed in minutes via your desktop or laptop.' .
When you log in to Fog Reveal, you are first notified that the data you are trying to access is confidential and 'must be properly protected'. After that, a search box that allows you to enter coordinates and addresses consisting of latitude and longitude is displayed, so it seems that past data on what devices existed in a specific area can be accessed from here. According to Fog Reveal's user manual, Fog Reveal seems to draw the location where the terminal was located with a
Also, the Fog Reveal user manual states, ``Be careful when specifying a large range in an urban area and performing a search. If you search for , a large number of devices will be displayed in the search results.If the number of devices corresponding to the search results exceeds 100,000, the excess will be deleted.' , it has been suggested that it is also possible to monitor a large number of people at once.
In addition, Fog Reveal can tag terminals displayed in search results and mark them as terminals of interest. If you query a specific device from here, the system can also show you the last 90 days of activity patterns for that device.
According to the Associated Press, some local police seem to be very happy with the ability to quickly access the device's location using Fog Reveal. Usually, in order to have major technology companies such as Google provide information on `` which terminals existed in a specific area at a specific time '', prepare a warrant called `` reverse location warrant '' (reverse detection warrant) need to do it. However, there are cases in which it takes a great deal of time to prepare this warrant. On the other hand, with Fog Reveal, Motherboard points out that ``similar information can be obtained simply by logging in to the service.'' A Washington County, Arkansas prosecutor told The Associated Press that Fog Reveal has been used without a warrant in the past in emergency situations.
In addition, the user manual of Fog Reveal includes police agencies such as 'Arkansas', 'Atlanta PD' (Police Department), 'Barnstable MA (Massachusetts) Police', 'CT State Police', and 'Delaware State Police'. It looks like it has a name. Regarding this, Mr. Cypher says that some of the names of law enforcement agencies that he already knew, and others that were not.
Motherboard wrote, ``It is notable that it contains what appears to be a reference to the private company'iWorksCorp. ' iWorksCorp may refer to iWork Corporation, a federal contractor .' increase. Motherboard has asked iWork Corporation for comment, but there was no response at the time of writing the article.
In a separate document obtained by the EFF , Fog Data Science says it can 'help corporate security departments as well as law enforcement agencies.' Also, from the user manual, it is also clear that Fog Reveal has restrictions such as `` It takes about 24 hours to process and save one day's worth of data ''.
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