Police in Minnesota granted court order requiring Google to hand over the identities of all those searching for the name of a local victim of fraud,Privacy ,Google,Edward Snowden,Police,Privacy
Since Edward Snowden’s revelations, it has been public knowledge that the US national security agencies are able to trawl search engine logs to identify who is searching for what, but that right has now been extended to a local police department.
Police in Edina, Minnesota, have been granted court order requiring Google to hand over the identities of all those searching for the name of a local victim of fraud. The warrant was granted by Hennepin County Judge Gary Larson.
The wiretap fraud case involves identity theft, with a falsified passport being faxed to a credit union from a spoofed phone number, by which means fraudsters were able to extract $28,500 from the account of a local resident Douglas (surname redacted).
Under the terms of the court order Google is required hand over the following information about anyone who searched for Douglas’s name between 1st December 2016 and 7 th January 2017: « Names, address(es), telephone number(s), dates of birth, social security numbers, email addresses, payment information, account information, IP addresses, and MAC addresses of the person(s) who requested/completed the search » .
