Use of GPS to investigate coup acts brings challenges – 01/19/2023 – Politics

Judicial requests requesting that social networks and other technology companies, as well as telephone operators, identify devices that were in Praça dos Três Poderes in Brasília or at the Headquarters on January 8, within a certain time, may represent important elements of investigation into possible actors involved in coup acts in Brasilia.

This type of data can not only serve as evidence against people already investigated, but also point out new suspects. Its use, however, brings challenges and may also become the target of possible legal questions depending on its scope, as pointed out by experts consulted by the Sheet.

Called geofencing, this type of request was used in investigations into the invasion of the United States Congress, which took place on January 6, 2021.

“Geofence warrants draw a circle on a map and oblige the company to identify all devices within that limit during a certain period of time”, explains Nathalie Fragoso, a professor at Insper and a lawyer specializing in data protection and privacy.

Requests from the AGU (Advocacy-General of the Union) to the Federal Supreme Court, to order companies to store geolocation data, indicate that a similar path can be adopted in Brazil.

On January 9, the body, which legally represents the government, reiterated the requests for geolocation guards made on the night of the coup acts, specifying as the time window the period from 1:00 pm to 9:00 pm on the day of the anti-democratic attacks. In addition, it expanded the requests also covering technology companies and social networks such as Google, Facebook, Telegram, WhatsApp and TikTok.

THE Sheet questioned the court as to the status of the petition, but received no response.

The Marco Civil da Internet determines that operators and application companies have to keep, respectively, the so-called connection and access logs for a minimum time. It is not explicitly mentioned in the law, however, that geolocation data must be stored, depending on the practice of each company.

Leandro Bissoli, a lawyer specializing in digital law, says that if there is judicial authorization for access to geolocation and the company has this data, it must send it. He also points out that, in the case of applications, the privacy setting defined by users can also impact data availability.

“It is the first stage of the investigation, it does not mean that it will be conclusive or that a penalty will already be added to this list”, says Bissoli.

Antonio Santoro, professor of criminal procedural law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, assesses that, as geofencing requests do not have specific targets, it is to be expected that this aspect will be used by the defense of investigated persons to question the data obtained through these requests. .

He, however, does not agree with this reading. “I think it doesn’t make much sense to say that you can’t investigate people’s geolocation insofar as the goal is exactly to identify and start the investigation,” he says.

In Brazil, the constitutionality of access to data based on non-individualized requests, which may include innocent people, is under discussion in a process involving the investigation into the murder of councilor Marielle Franco. After Google’s appeal, the case reached the STF and has general repercussions (it will serve as a parameter to define other cases of similar content).

In the United States, Google provided geolocation data and user registration data for investigations into the invasion of the Capitol.

Nathalie Fragoso points out that the use of data has also been the subject of strong debates among Americans and even highlights the presentation of a bill that seeks to prohibit access to geolocation without individual suspicion.

She points out the importance of being concerned with the proportionality and effective need for requests for data on the 8th of January, against the backdrop of the objective of avoiding future questions.

Another challenge is that, depending on the type of company, geolocation accuracy varies due to different collection methods. With this, the limit of what information can be obtained from the origin of the data is also changed —for example, indicating who may have entered each of the buildings of the Three Powers.

Vasco Furtado, professor of computing at the University of Fortaleza and member of the Brazilian Public Security Forum, points out that location data collected by applications allows for greater precision than the data obtained by operators based on the towers.

“If you have a person who is in the center of Praça dos Três Poderes and he is connected to a certain antenna [de telefonia]the strength of the signal allows me to estimate where you are”, he says. He says that the accuracy of this estimate can vary according to the position of the operator’s towers and the number of people who were in the place.

In the case of applications, the data can be obtained both by GPS, via satellite, and by data from Wi-Fi connections in the vicinity of the device over time, even if the connection has not been made. “It’s as if any wi-fi network that is available in the region is also an antenna”.

For Furtado, the geolocation data will make it more difficult for investigated to say that they were not in the indicated region. “However, saying with a level of precision that you were inside a certain room, I think this will always be a reason for debate in the judicial process”, he evaluates.

Once provided, geolocation data must be crossed with other elements, such as security camera recordings, testimonials and social media transmissions.