WEBVTT - The Secrets Hidden in Our Google Location Data 0:00:00.400 --> 0:00:07.240 The fact that your location is probably being recorded very 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:11.400 regularly at a regular interval. That's kind of a scary thing. 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:15.760 That's THEO pat. He's a nineteen year old freshman at 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:19.360 Stanford University. I tracked him down at the Stanford Student 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:22.560 Union on a Sunday Friday afternoon in October, a few 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:27.280 weeks after he started as a computer science underground. Hey 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:33.879 is that there? How are you all right? Here? We are? 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:37.880 He's a skinny, friendly kid with a nervous smile, bright eyes, 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:40.960 and pale skin. And when he was fifteen he created 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.879 a software program that I recently got interested in. The 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:48.199 type of program THEO created, It's called a visualizer. It 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:51.360 lets you upload your location data from Google. Then the 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:54.120 program lays that information over a map, so you can 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:57.840 see everywhere you've been in minute detail. THEO said. The 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:00.600 idea first came to him in a geography class where 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:03.160 we were talking a lot about kind of people and 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:07.160 migration patterns and where they go. And I guess that 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:12.200 coupled with somehow stumbling upon an article about Google take 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:14.280 out and how Google is recording his data about you 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:17.080 kind of put teer and two together and wanted to 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:21.399 look at myself then my kind of microcosm of migration patterns. 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:26.560 Google is constantly collecting incredibly detailed information on our movements, 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.960 and Google take Out, which THEO just mentioned, is an 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:33.320 easy way to download your information from Google. THEO already 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:35.440 knew how to code. He thought it would be cool 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:39.000 to see his own movements displayed on a map. Initially, 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.120 THEO put a basic program online and hundreds of thousands 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:45.360 of people tried it out. He soon made a pro version, 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:48.800 which has been used often in ways THEO never intended. 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:53.920 Jealous lovers, snooping on their partner's whereabouts, employers tracking their staff, 0:01:54.720 --> 0:02:11.600 even police and government agencies have taken an interest. M Hi, 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:15.040 I'm pr God Cary and I'm Alista bar And this 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:19.440 week on Decrypted, we're exploring the unintended consequences of the 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:23.800 systems that monitor our own location data. As a society, 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:27.120 we've consented to creating a detailed record of our every 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:30.800 step and entrusted it to Google, a private company. Fear 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:34.080 thought his maps would help people create digital keepsakes of 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:37.880 fond memories and records for traveling business people. But our 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.120 location data is more powerful than many of us realize, 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.200 and it can be used in surprising ways. We'll hear 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:46.800 from one father who tried to use Theo's map tool 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:49.560 to prove his daughter's innocence after she was charged with 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:52.480 a string of burglaries, but it didn't turn out. Well. 0:02:53.080 --> 0:03:03.920 Stay with us, so, Ali, let's get back to the 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:07.200 day when you and THEO met at Stanford. Well, we 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:09.720 found a conference room where we sat down to chat 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:13.560 to school table. That's right, of course, fully checked out. 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:16.799 So I think this is this building is like head headquarters. 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:19.400 And THEO told me how it all began. He grew 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:22.959 up in Memphis, Tennessee, and even though he dislikes the term, 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:26.000 he's a digital native, born in the Internet era and 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:29.400 embedded in tech most of his waking hours. Like a 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.679 lot of kids, THEO got into software coding by building websites. 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:35.280 I made my dad website, I mean myself a website. 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:37.640 I made my friends a website. I was making a 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:41.720 lot of websites back in elementary school. Then he worked 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:45.320 on Wikipedia, helping create software that spots people making stuff 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:48.240 up and correcting it. His talents were spotted by the 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:52.760 local Memphis TV station c W thirty News. I'm going back. 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:56.200 We count on apps are just about everything, banking, communicating, 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:58.480 waking us up in the morning, and we learned it 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:00.240 takes a lot of cold Yeah, that's going fer a 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:02.880 language for you know, get those programs to function the 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:05.760 way that they should. And White Station highs THEO pat 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:09.160 Our local cool kid knows all about it because he's 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:13.520 creating several apps, even helping lawyers build their cases. Here. CW. 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:17.960 Thirtis acre. Then THEO had his mapping idea in that 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:21.640 geography class. He'd heard of Google Takeout. That's the service 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:25.839 we mentioned earlier, which lets people download their information. It 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.000 was developed by the Data Liberation Front. That's the playful 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:31.719 name of a group of engineers whose job is to 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:34.760 give users access to their Google data and let them 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:38.480 use it anyway they want. We are the Data Liberation Front. 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:41.240 We've been working hard for the past four years to 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:43.240 make it easy for you to take your data out 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:47.000 of Google's products. This is a video the Data Liberation 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:50.440 Team released in twenty eleven when Google Takeout became available. 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:53.680 The team is dressed in a guerrilla style uniform and 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:56.320 one guy at the front is holding a cardboard takeout 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.160 box like the kind you get from Chinese restaurants. And 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:02.840 he's pulling things out like a floppy disk, a cassette, 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:07.400 a school of film. It's a great idea, but in 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:10.039 practice the data you can download isn't much used to 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:13.039 regular people. The location history is a file with a 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:16.880 bunch of numbers and letters representing things like latitude and longitude. 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:21.160 So THEO built another website. This one lets people take 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:25.520 those incomprehensible files from Google and upload them. Video software 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.240 passes the numbers and letters and up pops a heat 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:32.160 map showing where you hang out regularly. When I met 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:34.839 THEO at Stamford, he fired up the pro version of 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:37.040 his tool to show me the awesome power of this 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:41.440 data in a very personal way. All right, so I'll do. 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:44.880 Let's pull up your I, punch in my password, and 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:47.440 THEO guides me to the download section of my Google 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:51.880 account online. So we've got a turn of options here, 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.440 but all we want Google play Store. There were fifty 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.440 three different data sets in there. About two thirds of 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:01.440 the way down was my location in history. We click that, 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:05.599 picked the file format, and pressed download. After a while 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.080 we had the file, so we've just got lag launch 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:11.800 times now. They also kind of predict the activities that 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:16.200 you're doing at certain time intervals. But so that just 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:18.520 kind of goes on and there's just a lad of 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:22.120 data here. The real magic happened when THEO uploaded that 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:25.800 file into his software visualizer. The free version is on 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.680 a website called Location History Visualizer dot com slash heat map. 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:31.880 It's also one of the first results if you do 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:36.360 a Google search for something like Location History Visualizer. THEO 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.719 uploaded my data and a digital map appeared covered in 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:44.280 blue dots on Thursday. So there's a snake that goes 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.440 up from sand Cars where I live, just south of SATRSISC, 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:50.520 and it's snakes north. I know exactly what I'm seeing 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:52.920 that I was walking to my dinner appointment. Ali. Where 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:55.200 any secrets revealed when you saw your data in front 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.320 of you, Well, the data included one day a week 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:00.560 when I work from home and sank I lost. I 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:02.440 know what that was, Okay, so it has me a 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:08.080 little further south. That is me um picking up my laundry. Okay, sorry, boss, 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:12.320 I picked up my laundry for a few minutes. And 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:14.360 I also actually you know what that is. Also, I 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:17.720 met a source for lunch. That's good for a story 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.240 coming out of this Wednesday after work, I mean the 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:22.800 next town over all, and then we've gone up We've 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:26.800 gone up here into Redwood City. That's amazing. Just for 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.960 one day, there were hundreds of data points, and this 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:32.880 is just a tiny slice of the information available to you. 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:35.560 It was just one of fifty three items in that 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:40.920 Google take out list. Looking at the dots conjured emotions. 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:45.239 Immediately joy remembering my friends at movie night. Slight guilt, 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:47.440 we're calling that I nipped out to get the laundry 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:49.360 when I should have been at my desk working at home. 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:53.840 THEO had a similar strong reaction when he saw years 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:57.080 of his own activity plotted in excruciating detail in front 0:07:57.120 --> 0:07:59.080 of him for the first time. I mean, it was 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:03.800 just magical, right. I knew it was going on because 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:06.960 I had read that Google tracks your location data, and 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:09.480 I had the file, and I looked inside the file 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:11.880 and saw a list of latitude and longitude points. But 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:13.720 I think seeing that on a map in a very 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:17.920 concrete way, like oh, this is my physical existence navigating 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.480 through the world for a long period of time, that 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:22.560 was the kind of light bult like, wow, this is 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:25.240 this is a big chunk of who I am. When 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:29.200 he launched the visualizer online. He expected pretty innocent use cases. 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:32.439 I mean he was just a teenager, right right, But 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:35.960 once people started using the visualizer for their own purposes, 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.120 theo realized they had all sorts of use cases in 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:41.800 mind that he had never thought about. Fast wortword. About 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.520 a year, guy got in touch with me and was 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:49.120 looking to perform a more detailed sort of visualization. Right, 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:51.319 so you've got the heat map, can't I see the 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:55.240 individual points that were contributing to this heat map? And uh? 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:58.839 And I said, sure. That guy was Bill Carrica, the 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:01.920 father who wanted to used Google location data to save 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:05.360 his daughter Katie from prison. Fee you help Bill, and 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:08.280 made the more detailed map he was asking for. It 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:10.920 became the pro version of his program, and it offers 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:14.400 a very precise kind of visualization, often minute by minute. 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.839 And the initial reason behind it was for use in 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:20.400 kind of a legal case and demonstrating that someone was 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:24.600 not at a particular location. But it's since spiraled into 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:27.080 answer to different uses that I could have thought of. Initially, 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:35.679 that was the impetus for all of this. Bill Carrico 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:39.439 believed that his daughter's Google data would convincingly show that 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:42.199 she was nowhere near the places where the crimes she 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.679 was accused of were committed. What the data revealed and 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:58.000 what happened to Katie, that's coming up. So theo's visualizer software, 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:00.800 something he'd created as a fifteen year old in response 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:03.400 to his own curiosity, was out there in the world. 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:07.240 But once he launched the pro tool, THEO started seeing 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:09.920 all the more sinister ways this data can be used. 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:12.040 The ones that I definitely have the most correspondence with 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:16.920 our spouses who are very suspicious of their partners for 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.199 for whatever reason, and want to have a closer look 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:23.760 at where they were. So these people are somehow breaking 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:26.520 into their partner's Google accounts to get hold of this data, 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.240 that's right. And the strangest thing is that they really 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:32.400 want to talk to THEO, not just about how the 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.319 software works, but about their own predicaments. I mean what 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:38.360 type of things they say, like just really genuine kind 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:41.319 of please for help. Right, So, do you feel like 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:45.040 they're so they chat with you because they need help 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.080 with some technical aspect of it. But then but then 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:51.120 do you feel like they're they like they want to 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:55.599 tell you about the situation? Almost? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I 0:10:55.720 --> 0:11:00.200 think I think they desperately want to tell someone, right, 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.880 and UH, and this little chat box on the system 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:06.720 that's this magic box, right, that's providing this. I mean, 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:09.160 it's like a god right to them because they don't 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:10.679 they don't know that their phone has been recording this. 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:13.200 And then maybe they've they've looked up like how can 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:15.520 I tell where someone was? Like they made a Google 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.280 search and somehow, step by step has led them to this. 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:21.840 Then there are the use cases that THEO really can't 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:26.720 talk about. Police and government agencies investigating people by subpoena 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:29.959 in their Google data and digging through it. The kind 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:34.760 of application by different sorts of government entities to UH 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:39.040 to very particularly track individuals whom they had interested in 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:42.640 for different reasons is UH is definitely a major major 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:46.240 use of the tool of this location. Didn't think. I 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:48.640 guess if I had sat down and thought about it, 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:52.400 I would have. But that wasn't That wasn't really the 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:54.800 mindset that I went into it with. Right, It was 0:11:56.200 --> 0:12:01.959 very UH, egalitarian happiness, everyone's all good. But how old 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:05.599 you a time I was? I was fifteen, Yeah, that 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:07.439 was like a good world you for fifteen year old. 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:09.559 I think I didn't need to have all that baggage. 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:14.240 When I posted in for more details on these investigations, 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.679 THEA shared a few general details enough to give a 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:20.560 sense of the awesome power of this information. If they 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:23.679 have that enterprise version, then they might they might never 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:26.520 cool you, or they might if they need help. Was right. Yeah. 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:28.600 So one of the things that the enterprise version does 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:31.920 is has various integrations with different sorts of data that 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:34.760 you might want to overlay on your on the location 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.840 street file you have. So let's say you have acquired 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:41.839 UH cell tower records for an individual, and that can 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:43.959 be UH in all sorts of different forms. One of 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:47.000 the most common is like a PDF from a T 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:52.120 and T or whoever, that is monotype information. So we've 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:54.520 created kind of parsers for that sort of information where 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:57.199 you can then ingest the location nestory file and the 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:00.240 cell tower data and then cross reference that. So you've 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:03.400 gotten now two points that indicate two pieces of information 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:05.360 that indicate it's likely that someone was at a particular 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:12.959 place for corroborating right or call and text records right, 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:17.000 So plotting the locations that they were at when they 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:22.480 sent particular messages or received particular phone calls. This was 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:25.360 the type of capability. Bill Carrico was looking to tap 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:30.800 his daughter, a consignment store owner called Katie Carrico. Hyatt 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.040 was arrested in two thousand and fourteen on multiple charges 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:38.760 related to burglary and receiving stolen goods in Virginia. S 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:42.000 Deputy Commwell's attorney, Chuck Family so As police were covered 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.319 four hundred and fifteen items from high It's home, vehicle, 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:48.800 and shop. He says, Hi, it's motive being broke. He says, 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:51.920 text message records show marital strain between high and her 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:56.040 husband due to financial problems. Bill gathered Katie's Google location 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:59.000 history with the goal of helping her get acquitted. When 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:04.000 they location history was discovered by Katie, she had just 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.640 been arrested. She was announced arrest and she was trying 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:09.400 to figure out where these houses were that they accused 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:14.000 her of burgerizing, and she's never even heard of some 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:16.319 of the streets. Another thing, and so she realized that 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:20.400 Google had location histories are and so I went looking 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:24.760 for somebody and wanted to take that location data and 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.520 put it in a very specific format. And that's when 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:31.920 I found a young man who had a a tool, 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:35.560 and I found another guy in Bulgaria, and I talked 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:38.480 to both of them and I went with the fella 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.840 with the theyll asked THEO to plot it in detail, 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:45.680 hoping to prove she wasn't at some of the locations 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:49.160 where the police said she was. But there was a problem. 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.760 According to Katie's lawyer, j Lloyd Snook, he didn't want 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:55.200 to be recorded, but he said in a phone interview 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:59.000 that the Google location data in some cases showed exactly 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:03.200 what the prosecution claimed, so Snook decided against submitting it 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:08.680 as evidence. Thea wouldn't talk about the details of the case, 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.760 but he did say this, it goes both ways, right, 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:15.880 your location. Sometimes it's beneficial to a story you're trying 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:18.240 to create, and sometimes it's not beneficial to a story 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:21.000 you're trying to create. And I think once you open 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.480 that can of words worms, right, once it's submitted for 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:26.840 discovery and everything like that, it's it is now part 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:30.040 of you. It's part of your record that you're presenting, 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.240 and you can't just turn it off. You can't just 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:34.920 say no, never, never mind, let's let's not look at 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:39.120 this anymore. Katie ended up pleading guilty to grand larceny 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:42.280 and breaking and entering, and is currently imprisoned, serving a 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:46.680 sentence of about twenty years. Her father says she's innocent 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:50.280 and that the prosecution made mistakes. He's also upset with 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:53.240 her lawyer for not doing enough to help her. Bill 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:55.520 has been studying all the case files and he's even 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.160 written to the Governor of Virginia to request to pardon, 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:02.040 and he's still hoping. He used Katie's Google location history 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:05.680 to prove her innocence. He says that the police misreported 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:09.000 the date of one incident, and on that real dating question, 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:12.160 the data show Katie wasn't there. And then she said, 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:15.400 I saw two women in a car in the driveway, 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:18.200 and I can use the location to all the show 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:23.240 Katie at home on the phone text messaging that entire morning, 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.400 and it was a morning fighting and we showed Katie's 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:29.160 on the phone in her residence on that morning where 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:35.560 she couldn't possibly fit been the burger, and that breaks 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:39.320 their case wide open. I emailed the prosecutor Let's fleet 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:42.560 about this. He went back, calling the cases rock solid 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:46.560 and citing eyewitnesses and video footage putting Katie at the 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:50.880 scene of the alleged crimes. Bill seems torn about the 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:55.840 amount of data available to both sides in his daughter's case. Well, 0:16:56.520 --> 0:17:01.240 the if you have people who are out to paying 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:05.720 a picture, you can you can interpret data, if you 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.800 can assign motives to people, interpret things anyway you want. 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:12.480 Most of the wrongful convictions are where people at a 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:15.520 wrong place at the wrong time. I think that there's 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:20.359 a lot of downside having so much information, But if 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:24.720 you're an innocent person like Katie, this is absolutely um. 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:27.240 The only reason that we are where we are is 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:30.680 because that data existed, and we hope to be able 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:35.399 to use it to to prove her innocence. Ali, is 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.720 it unusual to have Google data show up in investigations 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:41.919 like this? Yeah, that's a good question. I wondered how 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:45.000 widespread this is. After talking with THEO and Bill So, 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:48.560 I called Jerome Greco. He's a digital forensics attorney at 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:51.560 the Legal Aid Society in New York. Two things law 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:54.119 enforce and one is doing a lot more than the 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:58.720 than they're publicly revealing, even on criminal cases. And too, 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:03.000 I think that they're going to just continually continue to 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:05.159 get more and more advanced and use these things more 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:09.160 and more. He had a powerful analogy to comparing traditional 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:12.480 police warrants to search your house with modern requests to 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:15.520 probe the contents of your smartphone and online accounts. If 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:18.440 I had a choice between somebody searching my home and 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:21.560 somebody searching my phone, I would choose my home every 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:25.199 single time. Uh. And again, I'm not somebody who who 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:28.720 has something illegal that I'm concerned about. But there's a 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.240 lot more private and personal information on my phone than 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:35.560 there is in my house, in my apartment, the police 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.720 can access your Google data if they can persuade a judge. 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:42.240 There's a good reason other government agencies go through similar steps. 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:45.560 If they get the okay, the company has to comply. 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:51.400 Back at Stanford, THEO was reluctant to discuss Katie's case, 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:54.640 but the episode is another source of mixed feelings about 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:57.280 the data that his creation has revealed. So well, I 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:00.280 think at least once once people realize that this is 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:03.879 a reality that we've kind of accidentally stumbled into. Right, 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:07.480 there was never any big, like public decision like let's 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.160 do it, let's let's all record our locations at all 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:12.800 times and give them to this private company and just 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:14.920 let's just do it. Right. That was not That was 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:18.040 not something that happened. Google Maps has just gotten smarter. 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:21.119 We can when you're home, we'll we'll tell you you 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:22.920 know how far it is to work. Right. That was 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:25.840 how this was all presented, and I think the uh, 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:29.280 the steps that kind of led to that were a 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:31.920 lot murkier in a lot of people's minds. And it 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:34.840 was like Google Maps is so great, man, it always 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:37.480 tells me and how far my commute is to work? 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:39.680 Like this is awesome, I know what to do, but 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.359 but what's the cost of that? I think people right 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:47.040 now broadly don't have an accurate sense of the cost, 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:49.159 and so they can't really way the benefit against that. 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:51.560 It just seems like all benefits, but in fact there 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:53.359 are these costs and we need to kind of consider 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:55.520 is this this is a cost we want to pay 0:19:56.119 --> 0:20:00.119 or what Google says it fights stay to equip us 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.160 that are overly board. It's also important to point out 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:06.600 that the specific location data product that we're talking about 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:10.640 is something that you have to opt into. However, that's 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:13.639 easy to do because Google often sends pop up questions 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:16.600 when you're using its apps suggesting location data would make 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:19.680 the service better, and their services are really useful, so 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:30.639 most of the time we end up clicking yes. Do 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:33.560 you feel any different about the location data or any 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:38.000 other information on your phone? So I guess for me, 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:40.680 I know it's there, I know I've opted into it. 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:43.480 I know it will probably reveal things about me, and 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.080 I neither want to delete it, nor do I want 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:49.240 to look at it and see what it says. Yeah, 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:52.919 I think I think I'm pretty torn. I certainly feel 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.359 seeing seeing that data put in front of me on 0:20:56.520 --> 0:21:00.680 on that map in so much detail. Uh, it really 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:03.520 gives you a sense of you know, how people compere 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:06.760 into your life. Actually, um, we didn't include this, but 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:10.359 Jerome was saying that it's a good example would be 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:12.400 something like, you know, if you go to church every 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:14.680 Sunday and you go to a particular church, you know, 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.520 they'd have the latitude and longitude of that, and you know, 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:19.760 if people got hold of that that they you know, 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:22.119 they'd be able to say, well, you're you're religious and 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:24.200 you actually believe in this type of religion and maybe, 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:25.960 you know, maybe you don't want people to everyone to 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:28.119 know about that. And yet maybe there's a lag in 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:31.920 civil society when it comes to learning about our data 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:34.240 and what its value is. And all the different ways 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:37.920 that it can be used, and inevitably there will be 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:40.000 more ways that it can be used that we haven't 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.120 even thought of yet. But as as we move forward 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:44.840 in time and as we all become more savvy about 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:47.280 what can be done with data, I'm sure there will 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:50.640 be other use cases like the one that THEO created 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:55.640 and many others. Yeah. Actually, THEO raised one final concern 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:58.640 on that point of consent and opting in or opting out, 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:00.760 and I hadn't really thought about it, but but I 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:02.840 really can't shake it now that he's mentioned it. I 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:05.080 think one of the biggest concerns is kind of not 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:08.000 even now, right, but it's thinking ten years from now, 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:10.600 twenty years from now, fifty years from now, this data 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:14.119 still exists, right. The data that you create now is data, 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:18.080 and it persists indefinitely, you know, two introduced from now. 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:20.760 I don't know what what what's it being, what's it 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:23.879 being used for? The delayed utility of this data that 0:22:24.040 --> 0:22:26.520 we're not aware of now. Maybe it's good and maybe 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:28.800 it helps you or maybe it really hurts you, but 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:31.680 you don't know. And has THEO ever shut off his 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:35.240 own location data on Google? Yes, he admitted to flipping 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:37.920 the switch for a couple of months once, but he 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:40.480 was pretty cagy about it. It's kind of tough to 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:43.480 talk about, right. It's I don't exactly know why I 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:47.600 did it. Almost it was just I want maybe I 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:50.399 don't want this because I just had passively opted in 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:54.040 to it my entire life. Let me consciously opt out 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:56.680