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If you watched certain YouTube videos, investigators demanded your data from Google

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If you've ever jokingly wondered if your search or viewing history is 
going to "put you on some kind of list," your concern may be more than 
warranted.

In now unsealed court documents reviewed by Forbes, Google was ordered to 
hand over the names, addresses, telephone numbers, and user activity of 
Youtube accounts and IP addresses that watched select YouTube videos, part 
of a larger criminal investigation by federal investigators.

The videos were sent by undercover police to a suspected cryptocurrency 
launderer under the username "elonmuskwhm." In conversations with the 
bitcoin trader, investigators sent links to public YouTube tutorials on 
mapping via drones and augmented reality software, Forbes details. The 
videos were watched more than 30,000 times, presumably by thousands of 
users unrelated to the case.
YouTube's parent company Google was ordered by federal investigators to 
quietly hand over all such viewer data for the period of Jan. 1 to Jan. 8, 
2023, but Forbes couldn't confirm if Google had complied.

The mandated data retrieval is worrisome in itself, according to privacy 
experts. Federal investigators argued the request was legally justified as 
the data "would be relevant and material to an ongoing criminal 
investigation, including by providing identification information about the 
perpetrators," citing justification used by other police forces around the 
country. In a case out of New Hampshire, police requested similar data 
during the investigation of bomb threats that were being streamed live to 
YouTube — the order specifically requested viewership information at 
select time stamps during the live streams.

"With all law enforcement demands, we have a rigorous process designed to 
protect the privacy and constitutional rights of our users while 
supporting the important work of law enforcement," Google spokesperson 
Matt Bryant told Forbes. "We examine each demand for legal validity, 
consistent with developing case law, and we routinely push back against 
over broad or otherwise inappropriate demands for user data, including 
objecting to some demands entirely."

Privacy experts, however, are worried about the kind of precedent the 
court's order creates, citing concerns over the protections of the first 
and fourth amendments. "This is the latest chapter in a disturbing trend 
where we see government agencies increasingly transforming search warrants 
into digital dragnets," executive director of the Surveillance Technology 
Oversight Project Albert Fox-Cahn told the publication. "It’s 
unconstitutional, it’s terrifying, and it’s happening every day."

Advocates have called on Google to be more transparent about its data-
sharing policies for years, with fears stoked by ongoing open arrests of 
protestors and the creeping state-wide criminalization of abortion.

In December, Google updated its privacy policies to allow users to save 
their location data directly to their devices rather than the cloud, and 
shortened the retention time for such storage — the new policies also 
indirectly stunted the long-used investigatory workaround in which law 
enforcement officials use Google location data to target suspects.

Google has been taken to court over such concerns over the past year, 
including two state supreme court cases surrounding the constitutionality 
of keyword search warrants, which force sites to turn over an individual's 
internet search data.

https://mashable.com/article/google-ordered-to-hand-over-viewer-data-
privacy-concerns

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If you watched certain YouTube videos, investigators demanded your data from Google Thank A Democrat <invalid@none.360> - 2024-03-24 00:25 +0100
  Re: If you watched certain YouTube videos, investigators demanded your data from Google Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> - 2024-03-24 11:02 +0100

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