A Florida man named Zachary McCoy, who was using a app to track his bike rides, found himself in trouble when he was suspected of a robbery. Local police used a geofence warrant to collect data from nearby devices. The warrant allows law enforcement to access data stored by companies like Google to find information about a criminal.
As NBC News, while McCoy never visited the home where the robbery took place, he was found to be a suspect because he left the location of his RunKeeper app enabled, which gave Google access to his location data.
According to the report, McCoy rode his bike past the home where the robbery occurred three times, as that was the route he was taking. His movements in the area, along with location , made him appear suspicious.
In January, Google's legal research team contacted McCoy and told him that Gainesville police were requesting his location data.
He learned about the case when he mentioned the case number provided by Google in the email it sent him and saw that it referred to a robbery that took place next to house .
McCoy hired a lawyer and was able to prove his innocence to the authorities.
Applications for geofence warrants have increased dramatically in recent years. As reported by NBC, there has been a 1500% increase in demand for geofence warrants from law enforcement agencies.
In February 2020, Google said it would soon impose restrictions on Android apps that are allowed to track users ' location in the background.
