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Virginia police used a method called geofencing to tap into Google’s records to identify people who had been near a bank robbery in Midlothian, where an armed robber escaped with $195,000.
Geofencing lets authorities draw an electronic boundary around a crime scene and then obtain a warrant—not to search a particular home or office, but to compel a tech company to search its user data for anyone inside that virtual perimeter at the relevant time.
The practice is facing legal challenge under the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches of persons, houses, papers and effects unless a neutral magistrate issues a warrant and the search is directed at specific evidence of a crime.
At issue before the U.S. Supreme Court is whether geofencing is a clever investigative tool, a troubling intrusion worthy of an Orwell novel, or both — and whether it can withstand constitutional scrutiny.
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