The court of Minnesota ordered Google to provide the police with search logs of residents of the whole city

Modern technologies help to raise the level and quality of life of a modern person. Hi-tech appears in all spheres of our life, including the criminal component. So, attackers often use high-tech gadgets or software, and now it’s not about cybercriminals, but about "ordinary" criminals. But law enforcement officers from different countries are not sleeping, trying to keep up with progress. For those who protect society from crime, new devices and methods are gradually emerging that help uncover the atrocities faster and more efficiently than before.

One of the simplest ways is to analyze search queries on the computer or phone of the alleged offender. Many intruders do not take precautions when planning something using their PC, tablet or phone. In the process of analyzing these devices, police sometimes manage to obtain important evidence. The analysis of logs saved by providers also helps. Sometimes law enforcement officers in a court order require technology companies to provide certain data about their users. That is what happened in Edina, Minnesota, USA. True, here the police requested information not about any resident. The Edina Police Department went to court with a demand for Google to provide information on search queries of the residents of their city.

Looking ahead, it is worth noting that this is not all about all requests in a row, but only those that are related to a particular person. That is, queries, the text of which contains the name of this person.
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It all started with the fact that in January of this year one of the state banks received a call from his client with the last name Douglas. He asked the clerk to transfer $ 28,500 from his account at this bank to an account at another bank. To confirm the transaction, Douglas was asked to fax a copy of his passport. As it turned out, the sent copy of the passport is a fake, and the request itself was made by a person who has nothing to do with the account.

The bank notified the law enforcers about the incident, and they began investigating the incident. After examining all the evidence, the police began to search for the image used to create a false copy of the passport, and found it using Google Images. In the search services Bing and Yahoo, the same photo was not found, so the police concluded that the attacker was looking for a photo through Google.

After that, the police had the idea to give Google a request to get certain search keywords made by residents of the city at a certain time. The corresponding request was submitted not to the company, but to the court. By law, US companies can only give out personal data of their clients or third parties at the request of the police. The judge approved the request, and Google was required to provide this information for a period of five weeks.

Google should give law enforcement officers IP, e-mail and account data of those residents who searched for the name Douglas in the specified time interval. It seems to be the right move by the police, but now human rights activists and information security experts are sounding the alarm. In fact, what if someone was looking for the name of his relative or friend - because the name Douglas is quite widespread in the United States? Here, even within a small town one can find several Douglases.

And what will the police do when they get the information they need? Go to the homes of users who entered the specified search query in order to arrest? In the US, the case law of the court, and the decision of the judge can be the beginning of a large number of law enforcement officers appealing to the court in order to obtain similar information in other cities. Already, of course, not in relation to a certain Douglas, but in other cases.

Since the case is being developed , the police do not report on the interim results of the investigation. So far, it is unclear whether Google will agree to give out this information, or will refuse, citing a court order that is not sufficiently clear. Nevertheless, it is likely that this case can turn into something much more ambitious and significant than a simple search for a person on requests that he once did.



In general, technology companies, on whose servers data of thousands or even millions of people are stored, do not cooperate too much with the police, believing that private information should remain inviolable. For example, back in October 2015, Apple representatives refused to comply with the police demand to unlock the phone number of Jun Feng, who pleaded guilty to the sale of a narcotic substance.

Now on many devices, including phones, encryption is enabled by default. Google and Apple, for example, back in 2014 included the default data encryption processed by iOS and Android. It is clear that law enforcement authorities do not like all that much. In the same 2014, representatives of the FBI even called the position of these companies antisocial.

The director of the FBI, James Koumi, then declared that technology had become an instrument in the hands of very dangerous people, and the laws had fallen behind technological progress. "We have the legal right to intercept and listen to communications and receive information on the court order, but often there is no technical ability to do this," said Koumi.

It is still unclear whether the current situation will be a continuation of the confrontation between technology companies and the police. But it is already clear that it will hardly be possible to solve the problem soon.