A Florida man who used a fitness app to track his bike rides found himself a suspect in a burglary when the police used a geofence order to collect data from nearby devices, a NBC News find research. Zachary McCoy had never been to the house where the burglary took place, but by leaving his location settings on for the RunKeeper app, he unknowingly provided information about his whereabouts to Google, which placed him at the scene of the crime.
Because McCoy cycled three times past the house where the burglary took place on the day of the alleged crime – part of his usual route through the neighborhood – he was considered a suspect. NBC News says the Google legal investigation team contacted McCoy in January and informed him that the Gainesville police demanded information from his Google account.
He was eventually acquitted as a suspect, but not before hiring a lawyer to help him figure out what the data police were looking for. The geofence command – a sort of search command – required Google to provide data from all the devices it had included near the burglary site, including the location. This data is usually from Android location services; collection can be disabled via the ‘Accounts’ menu in the settings.
Law enforcement requests for geofence warrants have risen sharply in recent years NBC News notes, rising 1500 percent from 2017 to 2018 and another 500 percent between 2018 and 2019. Last year, the New York Times marked the case of Jorge Molina in 2018, accused in a murder in Arizona after the police used a geofence order that suggested he was near the crime scene. The case against Molina finally fell apart when new evidence came to light.
Last month, Google announced that it is imposing new restrictions on Android apps that can track location in the background. All new Google Play apps that seek background access will be subject to an assessment process in early August.
Google did not respond immediately to a request for comment.