Typos in Geofence Warrant Result in Two-Mile Location Dragnet Across San Francisco
But errors in the geofence warrant applications that go before a judge can violate the privacy of vastly more people — in one case almost two miles away.
It’s not known which law enforcement agency requested the nearly two-mile-long geofence warrant, or for how long the warrant was in effect.
The ACLU attorneys reviewed thousands of geofence warrants filed in San Francisco Criminal Court that were issued over three years between 2018 and mid-2021, which they say was likely only a fraction of geofence warrants used in San Francisco during that time.
The attorneys’ findings also showed the geofence warrants disproportionately targeted certain San Francisco neighborhoods more than others, particularly immigrant-heavy areas like Portola.
Other tech companies that store troves of users’ location data — like Uber, Microsoft and Yahoo (which owns TechCrunch) — are known to receive geofence warrants.
