We found that state and local law enforcement agencies have performed hundreds of thousands of cellphone extractions since 2015, often without a warrant.
Based on 110 public records requests to state and local law enforcement agencies across the country, our research documents more than 2,000 agencies that have purchased these tools, in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. This report documents the widespread adoption of MDFTs by law enforcement in the United States.
As one expert puts it, with the amount of sensitive information stored on smartphones today, the tools provide a “window into the soul.” To search phones, law enforcement agencies use mobile device forensic tools (MDFTs), a powerful technology that allows police to extract a full copy of data from a cellphone - all emails, texts, photos, location, app data, and more - which can then be programmatically searched. Every day, law enforcement agencies across the country search thousands of cellphones, typically incident to arrest.
0 kommentar(er)
