Google's location history to place a Virginia man near the scene of a federal bank robbery | Eastern NC Now

In 2019, police used a broad search warrant to collect the location history of 19 cell phones near the scene of a federal bank robbery in Virginia. Okello Chatrie was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Wednesday based on location data evidence gathered from his phone, the Associated Press reported.

A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch, "We vigorously protect the privacy of our users while supporting the important work of law enforcement. We developed a process specifically for these requests that is designed to honor our legal obligations while narrowing the scope of data disclosed."

While police have been granted geofence warrants for years, Chatrie's lawyers are pushing back on the legality of the searches. They argued that these invasive warrants violate the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches. His lawyers stated, "It is the digital equivalent of searching every home in the neighborhood of a reported burglary, or searching the bags of every person walking along Broadway because of a theft in Times Square."

U.S. District Judge Hannah Lauck agreed that the warrant violated Chatrie's rights and the rights of the innocent parties whose data was also collected. However, Lauck denied Chatrie's motion to throw out the location data evidence. Instead, the judge found that the authorities acted in good faith and followed set procedures.

Federal prosecutors argued that Chatrie forfeited any expectation of privacy when he opted into the location tracking feature on Google.