An innocent Florida man became a suspect in a burglary crime after Google tracked his bike riding history and learned he passed a burglarized home three times.
Zachary McCoy, 30, first learned he was a suspect in a March 2019 burglary case when Google’s legal investigations support team sent him an email in January.
They were writing inform McCoy that local Gainesville authorities had requested all information related to his account and Google would release said data to law enforcement unless he blocked the motion in court.
‘I was hit with a really deep fear,’ McCoy told NBC News.
Like millions of users across the globe, McCoy used an assortment of Google products, like YouTube and Gmail, on his Android. The multinational technology company had become an integrated part of his life.
Florida authorities issued a warrant for Google to get account information about Zachary McCoy, 30, in January 2019
‘I didn’t know what it was about, but I knew the police wanted to get something from me. I was afraid I was going to get charged with something, I don’t know what,’ he said.
The charge McCoy was unknowingly being considered for was the burglary of a 97-year-old woman’s home. She reported missing several pieces of jewelry missing, including an engagement ring worth $2,000.
Using a case number attached to Google’s letter, McCoy searched on the Gainesville Police Department’s website for information and discovered a one-page investigation report from 10 months earlier.
The crime happened less than a mile away from the home McCoy, who recently received an associate degree in computer programming, lived in with two roommates.
McCoy knew that he had nothing to do with the burglary, had never been inside the home and didn’t know anyone who would’ve. Still, he was alarmed and anxious over potential allegations.
After borrowing thousands of dollars from his parents to hire lawyer, Caleb Kenyon, it was discovered Google’s legal warrant had been prompted by a ‘geofence warrant.’
Geoforce Warrants have become an authority surveillance tool that virtually analyzes crime scenes by collecting Google location data -taken from Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi and cell phone connections – from everyone in the area.
The warrants are used to help police find suspects when there are no tangible leads, but they also capture data from law-abiding people who have nothing to do with the incident.
Still trying to piece together a potentially looming investigation, McCoy examined his phone for clues.
An avid biker, McCoy used the fitness-tracking app RunKeeper to record his rides using his Android’s location, which revealed his movements to Google.
He brought up his route from the day of the crime and realized he passed the victim’s home three times within an hour as part of his frequent loops though the neighborhood.
McCoy, an avid biker, used the RunKeeper app (pictured) to record his rides in his Gainesville, Florida, neighborhood
McCoy said: ‘It was a nightmare scenario. I was using an app to see how many miles I rode my bike and now it was putting me at the scene of the crime. And I was the lead suspect.’
Just four days after the woman filed a police report, authorities searching for leads went to an Alachua County judge with a warrant for Google.
They demanded records of all devices using Google service products that were near the victim’s home at the time of the burglary.
The first wave of data would not include any identifying information and officers shifted through the documents for anything deemed suspicious.
Kenyon told NBC News that authorities became interested in McCoy’s device after dissecting the first batch of information.
They didn’t have any identifying information about McCoy, so they asked Google to provide names of their users.
This request is what caused McCoy to receive a notification from Google as part of its general policy of alerting users about government information requests.
While privacy advocates have voiced that geofence warrants could violate constitutional rights, law enforcement officials have championed the tool.
Authorities point out that they don’t receive any identifying information from Google until they determine a device to be suspicious and, even then, the data is not enough to charge someone with a crime.
Google geofence warrants are continually used by law enforcement and is quickly increasing. Use of the tool increased 1,500 percent from 2017 to 2018 and by 500 percent from 2018 to 2019.
Law enforcement officials use Google geofence warrant to gather information on potential suspects by gathering data from Google bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi and cell phone connections
Kevin Armbruster, a retired lieutenant with the Milwaukee Police Department, said the geofence tool was ‘great technology.’
During his time on the force, Armbruster oversaw high technology focused investigations that used tools like geofence warrants.
‘I would think the majority of citizens in the world would love the fact that we are putting violent offenders in jail,’ said Armbruster.
Milwaukee authorities said geofence warrants have helped solve several crimes, like shootings, homicides, robberies, kidnappings and sexual assault involving an abduction.
There have been a small amount of legal challenges to Google geofence warrants, partially because the warrants are done discretely and defense lawyers may not realize the tool was used to accuse clients.
One McCoy learned why he raised some preemptive red flags in the burglary case, he and Kenyon set out to stop local authorities from encroaching on his personal information and prove his innocence.
Kenyon said he called the investigator working the case and told him ‘You’re looking at the wrong guy.’
Meanwhile, McCoy was coming to terms with Google collecting and possibly sharing his information.
McCoy said: ‘I didn’t realize that by having location services on that Google was also keeping a log of where I was going.’
‘I’m sure it’s in their terms of service but I never read through those walls of text, and I don’t think most people do either.’
He also mentioned that some people said had no problem letting authorities see phone data along with arguments that people had nothing to worry about if they were innocent.
McCoy said this mindset doesn’t consider situations like his.
‘If you’re innocent, that doesn’t mean you can’t be in the wrong place at the wrong time, like going on a bike ride in which your GPS puts you in a position where police suspect you of a crime you didn’t commit,’ he said.
On January 31, Kenyon filed a motion in civil court to make the geofence warrant ‘null and void’, as well as block the release of McCoy’s personal information,
Kenyon: ‘This geofence warrant effectively blindly casts a net backwards in time hoping to ensnare a burglar. This concept is akin to the plotline in many a science fiction film featuring a dystopian, fascist government’
He argued to officials that geofence warrants were unconstitutional because it allowed police to search phone data from an unknown amount of people to find a single suspect.
Kenyon wrote: ‘This geofence warrant effectively blindly casts a net backwards in time hoping to ensnare a burglar. This concept is akin to the plotline in many a science fiction film featuring a dystopian, fascist government.’
Eventually, the state attorney’s office withdrew the warrant and removed McCoy as a suspect in the case.
Kenyon further proved McCoy was not the burglar by showing screenshots of his client’s Google location history in RunKeeper. It showed months of bike rides past the home.
McCoy has not faced any charges yet, but Kenyon said:’…There was no knowing what law enforcement was going to do with that data when they got it behind closed doors. Not that I distrust them, but I wouldn’t trust them not to arrest someone.’
On his part, McCoy admitted that he feels bad for the victim, but the geofence warrant may be a tad much.
‘I’m definitely sorry that happened to her, and I’m glad police were trying to solve it, but it just seems like a really broad net for them to cast,’ he said.
‘What’s the cost-benefit? How many innocent people do we have to harass?’
No one has been arrested for the burglary.