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The federal government asked Google to siphon personal data on certain users for investigators to peruse, newly obtained court documents reveal.
The case occurred in 2019 when investigators in Wisconsin were searching for men they believed had trafficked a minor, according to court documents obtained and published by Forbes on Monday. Google cooperated with a “keyword warrant” to provide information on anyone who searched for her name, address, and two spellings of her mother’s name. The documents didn’t specify how many users were affected by the request.
Prior to the case, there had been just five widely known instances the feds employing such “keyword warrants” to search for internet users. Court documents made public in 2017 showed the feds using the tactic to find anyone who searched for a fraud victim in Edina, Minnesota, while documents made public in 2020 revealed officials using it to investigate an arson victim who served as a witness in the racketeering case against R. Kelly. And in 2018, after serial bombings in Austin, Texas, the feds asked
The latest case became public only after the Justice Department accidentally unsealed it in September. The department has since resealed the case, and declined to comment on whether its investigation led to any charges.
“As with all law enforcement requests, we have a rigorous process that is designed to protect the privacy of our users while supporting the important work of law enforcement,” a spokesperson for Google told Forbes in a statement.
American Civil Liberties Union attorney Jennifer Granick condemned the practice. “Trawling through Google’s search history database enables police to identify people merely based on what they might have been thinking about, for whatever reason, at some point in the past. This is a virtual dragnet through the public’s interests, beliefs, opinions, values and friendships, akin to mind reading powered by the Google time machine,” Granick said. “This never-before-possible technique threatens First Amendment interests and will inevitably sweep up innocent people, especially if the keyword terms are not unique and the time frame not precise. To make matters worse, police are currently doing this in secret, which insulates the practice from public debate and regulation.”