Location data firm helps police find out when suspects visited their doctor
A location-tracking company that sells its services to police departments is apparently using addresses and coordinates of doctors’ and lawyers’ offices and other types of locations to help cops compile lists of places visited by suspects, according to a 404 Media report published today.
Fog Data Science, which says it “harness[es] the power of data to safeguard national security and provide law enforcement with actionable intelligence,” has a “Project Intake Form” that asks police for locations where potential suspects and their mobile devices might be found. The form, obtained by 404 Media, instructs police officers to list locations of friends’ and families’ houses, associates’ homes and offices, and the offices of a person’s doctor or lawyer.
Fog Data has a trove of location data derived from smartphones’ geolocation signals, which would already include doctors’ offices and many other types of locations even before police ask for information on a specific person. Details provided by police on the intake form seem likely to help Fog Data conduct more effective searches of its database to find out when suspects visited particular places. The form also asks police to identify the person of interest’s name and/or known aliases and their “link to criminal activity.”
Related Knowledge Center: Digital privacy and data security
If you’re online, you’re generating a constant stream of information about yourself — sometimes voluntarily, sometimes unwittingly — that is assembled and used to craft your online experience. And generate wealth for data brokers. Meanwhile, designers and managers of the digital infrastructure on which the world depends are engaged in a never-ending effort to thwart attempts, by both criminal enterprises and state actors, to exploit vulnerabilities in those systems.
Signalgate | State surveillance