Nevada Police Purchase Mass Location Tracking Tool, No Warrant Required

Nevada law enforcement agencies have acquired a powerful surveillance tool that maps individuals' movements using data drawn from common smartphone apps. The system, purchased in January, operates without judicial oversight. A $12,000 annual contract with Fog Data Science, paid for with a federal grant, provides access to the Fog Reveal platform. It aggregates location pings from applications like weather and navigation services, allowing analysts to track devices in near real-time and discern patterns of life—including homes, workplaces, and places of assembly.

The Nevada Independent reported the purchase on April 10, noting it bypassed typical state-level approvals. The agreement permits up to 250 searches per month. Investigators can input a device's advertising identifier to see its historical movements or define a geographic area to identify every phone present. While Fog Data Science states its data is anonymized and lawfully sourced from advertising networks, privacy advocates are unconvinced. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has investigated the platform, notes a single query can reveal information on vast numbers of people unrelated to any investigation.

This move echoes Nevada's history with surveillance technology, including the use of cell-site simulators. It also exploits a legal gray area: while the Supreme Court has ruled that warrants are required for historical location data held by telecom carriers, information purchased from commercial data brokers often falls outside that protection. The Nevada Department of Public Safety states the tool is restricted to trained analysts at its Threat Analysis Center for investigating specific crimes or threats. Yet legal experts like the ACLU of Nevada argue such systems effectively place everyone under potential surveillance, circumventing constitutional safeguards. The tool is reportedly used by dozens of agencies across the U.S., raising persistent questions about the balance between investigative power and privacy in an era of ubiquitous commercial data collection.

Source: Webpronews