Cell Phones, Missing Persons, and Privacy

An anonymous reader sends in a Seattle PI story about the use of cell phone records in missing-person cases. Typically, phone companies turn over location information to police without a warrant if one of their customers is reported missing; the police need only to state that the person may be in danger. In any criminal case, a warrant from a judge would be required before the telcos divulged any information. While in some poster-child cases lives have been saved as a result of this practice, it seems like a class-action lawsuit waiting to happen. It is not a crime to go missing.

It is not a crime to go missing.

No but it is a crime if someone has taken you against your will. They're not investigating the person missing for criminal activity but because they think that they have been victimized. Privacy is great, perspective is even better.

Re:It is not a crime to go missing.

A few weeks ago I had to renew my CPR certification. We had to go over "complied consent". I imagine the same concept applies to cases like this. If the situation is life or death and the victim or their guardians do not decline, it is assumed that they would want any and all help within the ability of the rescuer.

Re:It is not a crime to go missing.

Maybe the term is different where you are, but I'm fairly sure that's "implied consent".

Re:It is not a crime to go missing.

Perhaps this should be the the impetus for a new "contract with society".

In the event that I am lost and my cell phone or GPS bracelet or other tracking devices are the only way to find and save me, I agree to just sit there and die. In exchange, I want my privacy back and do not want such records made available to nearly anyone who asks.

Re:It is not a crime to go missing.

But you're not able to make that distinction beforehand, and if you can then you should have no trouble proving it to a judge. The ethical dilemma is that, if a person goes missing they may or may not be in danger so if you violate their privacy by tracking them down with their cellphone you're only justified if they were in danger. If they just decided they wanted to leave their town without telling anyone, you've committed a huge breach of their personal privacy for nothing. I usually find it best to err on the side of privacy rather than safety. There's also the precedent it sets of cooperation by the phone companies (as if we didn't have enough of that already) with the government without a warrant.

If there is need for phone records to be accessed, we have appropriate channels that law enforcement needs to go through to obtain such information.

Re:It is not a crime to go missing.

If you're really that desperate for privacy, turn your phone off! For anyone not suffering delusions of grandure (yeah so satalites can read your clothes labels from space, but who thinks they're really that interesting?) and realises that we buy phones because most of us are social creatures rather than paranoid conspiracy nuts, and actually like being able to make contact with other human beings.

"I usually find it best to err on the side of privacy rather than safety"

Well, I have friends, we share our lives with each other, and would much prefer we look out for each other than live our lives in fear and have to hide from each other. Maybe we're just unique like that.

Re:It is not a crime to go missing.

.....we buy phones because most of us are social creatures rather than paranoid conspiracy nuts, and actually like being able to make contact with other human beings.

Not necessarily. The reason -- and the ONLY reason -- I even own a cellphone is to keep tabs on my 80-year old disabled shut-in mother (for whom I am a full-time caretaker) and enable her to contact me in an emergency if I am out running errands. If it weren't for that need, I wouldn't have the slightest interest in the damn thing. Unlike most people nowadays, I like being alone with my thoughts, my music, or whatever while out and about, and do not have the compulsive need to be constantly talking to anyone about anything at all times. Yes, I have friends (very few -- I look for quality, not quantity), but I chat with them in the privacy and comfort of my own home, maybe once or twice a week for an hour or so. I do not have the need to be yakking with them for hours on end about trivia while riding the bus or shopping at the supermarket or eating lunch out, nor the desire to broadcast those personal conversations to all within earshot.

To me, all these modern devices have made communication too easy and cheapened it, lowering it to the level of a nervous habit akin to chewing gum. We have vastly increased the ability to communicate, yet added nothing of substance or value to that communication. And I believe we are worse off as a society because of it.

Feel free to mod me down as "-1 old fogy."

Re:It is not a crime to go missing.

You really do sound like a bitter old man. Darn kids.

So mod down -1 old fogie viewing past with rose-colored glasses. Also mod down -1 too much justification about "quantity vs. quality" of friendships. Also mod down -1 would use cellphone for which supposedly has for "ONLY" one reason for many, many other reasons if an emergency arose, or maybe even if wanted a pizza on the way home from work thus proving it's not so bad to use a cellphone sometimes. That is unless, of course, carry-out pizzas have some how cheapened the entire food experience and dining, in which case he wouldn't do so.

In all seriousness, everybody talks about email, texting and cellphone use as "cheapening" communication, but it's merely changed it. Communication isn't like money where the primary basis is quantity, and the more you have, the less you usually appreciate it. I like being able to text my wife or friends with quick updates. I like being able to order food from my favorite places conveniently if I am out and about. Does this cheapen anything? No. It's not like I was pining for a deep, face-to-face conversation with the kid working the phones and the fryer at the takeout joint. And I don't try to have deep conversations with my wife using texts. But I just might have a deep conversation with her using our evil, communication-wrecking cellphones!

Re:It is not a crime to go missing.

"I don't understand the complains about people talking on their phones. What if the other person they were talking to was right there? Still talking about the same things, still as much in your ear space... "

Speaking as someone who loves his mobile devices, I think you're missing the point on this bit. It's very annoying because it's LOUDER. When two people are engaged in conversation in person they tend to speak in lower tones, FAR lower than most cellphone talkers. It's rude and annoying and I'm glad some establishments are cracking down on the practice. There's a time and place to have a nice phone chat; while I am crammed into a seat next to you in a movie, eater, bus, or plane are not those times and places. Unless of course you want me to use your phone on you as a suppository :)

Re:It is not a crime to go missing.

Or a Bat-signal.

Bit of a false dichotomy

Well, I have friends, we share our lives with each other, and would much prefer we look out for each other than live our lives in fear and have to hide from each other. Maybe we're just unique like that.

Well, that's a bit of a false dichotomy there. There are about 6 billion shades of grey between 100% social, sharing every single moment with everyone, and 100% paranoid, affraid of everything that moves.

And even for a given person there are nuances in how much you trust them. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, either you broadcast every waking moment and detail of your life to them, or you fear them and hide from them.

E.g., I trust mom, but I wouldn't tell her my passwords. I don't "hide" from her, I don't "fear" her, and I certainly don't have any "delusions of grandeur", but it's just something that she doesn't need to know and accidentally end up telling everyone she knows. (For all her good intentions, she _is_ a terminal chatterbox and sometimes her mouth gets a whole lap ahead of her judgment.)

E.g., I trust grandma, but I wouldn't necessarily tell her each time I took a taxi to the railway station. She's seen a great depression as a child, and then a war, and still has certain... immutable ideas about money management, which would make the stereotypical Scotsman look positively spendthrift. So I'm just avoiding an unnecessary talk about how not only it's an abomination to blow a few euros on the taxi.

And from there it's even more shades of grey when it comes to who is entitled to know what. If you get far enough from there, some people don't need to know anything about me. A few people _are_ to be avoided.

And the implication is starting to somewhat bother me that, basically, if you want any privacy at all, then you're one of those guys that "live our lives in fear and have to hide from each other." It's just called being realistic enough, not being a paranoid hermit.

So let's lay that fallacy to rest already. So you have friends and talk to them. Even on the phone. Big deal. We all do. So you look out for each other. Big deal. Again, we all do. It still doesn't automatically overrule all and every privacy concerns. You don't need to be paranoid and afraid to not broadcast every moment of your life, you just need to be realistic enough.

Re:It is not a crime to go missing.

If you want REAL privacy, dig that old phone out of the drawer and pay cash for a pre-pay sim.

I'm no fan of nannying government or warrantless searches or secret warrants, but I find your position too fundamentalist for my taste; especially when your solution is so easy.

Re:It is not a crime to go missing.

Wow, so all criminals have to do is make sure their victims are never found, thus making it illegal for police and others to even start searching? Brilliant!

The consequences of finding somebody who doesn't want to be found are much, much less severe than the consequences of not finding somebody who needs help, or who has already been murdered.

And by the way: if you REALLY want to get lost, and don't dump your cellphone, credit cards, etc. then you are a moron, and deserve to be found.

Re:It is not a crime to go missing.

Is there anything in law where if the authorities go looking for a missing person, and find them, the "missing" person can state that they WANT to remain "lost" and the authorities will have to honour that??

(I mean under normal, nonthreatening conditions, not just battered women's shelters and the like, where the assumption is already that you wish to remain "lost".)

Re:It is not a crime to go missing.

I believe this the approach of the Salvation Army, who, although a God Squad do some good work amongst the down and outs and operate a very good missing persons service. Their approach on finding someone is to tell them they are being looked for and by whom and then to ask if it is ok to pass back the news that the person is in good health and then at the 'missing' person's choice, put them in contact with the person reporting them missing.

The thing is that the Sally Army do a personal visit to check things are ok. A mobile company calling you to find out whether you want to be found is too liable to abuse. That is, you could be kidnapped by a cult and forced to say you were ok and nobody would be the wiser.

Re:It is not a crime to go missing.

Most warrants are issued when there is no proof of criminal activity, only a realistic possibility ("probable cause") that it may be occurring. Think of it, if a crime is already proven, why waste time and money searching for more evidence?

If a person is missing without living a reasonable explanation, it's more likely than not that a crime has been committed. Most people at least leave a note or make a phone call if they run away from their spouse. Running away as a minor, from your own children or from a debt is a crime by itself. Given the massive loss of public resources otherwise, the law should probably require a signed note, without indication of new address needed, if someone just wants to be left alone.

Until then, if an adult with no outstanding obligation is found by police but does not wish to go back to his/her family, their whereabouts should not be revealed to any private citizens and their cell phone records should not be examined without a probable cause for investigating other crimes.

Community Caretaking

Police perform searches that would normally be in violation of the 4th Amendment if they were looking for evidence or suspects all the time to check up on people on behalf of worried family members. This is known as a "community caretaking search," and was established as a legal basis for searches in Cady v. Dombrowski.

It's worth noting that 4th Amendment rights almost entirely enforced via evidence suppression motions in criminal trials. If you aren't on trial for a crime, then generally you have no real legal way of challenging a search.

It's not a crime to go missing... BUT

The police can dispense with warrants and procedure in cases where they believe immenent harm is possible.

Also, since we're reading about this in the "Seattle PI", it's worth mentioning that suicide is illegal in the State of Washington and the phone they were tracking belonged to a suicidal young man.

Going Off The Grid 101

I thought lesson 1 was "Dump the cell phone."

As someone on a Search & Rescue team

I have gone out on searches for missing people, including ones that have basically called 911 and was able to say basically "I am stuck in the snow and dieing" but they had no idea where they were. This was before most cellphones had a GPS, and our 911 center had no idea where the call came from. Calling the cell company, we had the Sheriff on the phone along with the parents of the missing kids, and the parents paid the bill, and AT&T would not release the location info. Their friend had another phone provider (MCI? I can't remember it was so long ago), and they released the last location ping to us immediately. We also were able to quickly pull the last credit card purchase from them and figured out between their gas and snack runs and their last cellphone tower used they were probably in a certain camping area. Sure enough, a airplane spotted them shortly after we re-focussed our efforts and a few hours after that the helicopters and ground teams on snowmobiles (of which I was one) reached the party of 6 and was able to pull them all back out to their families. While I am huge on privacy and a person's rights, I also was infuriated when the cell company that was used to make the 911 call for help refused to release the location information to us. I am sure they could have seen that 911 was recently dialed, and having the family members on the phone as well pleading with them to release it to us, they refused. There may be a class action suit on the way for releasing private information, but what about if they don't release it and the victims die? Does the family then sue the cell company for having life-saving information and withholding it, essentially preventing or hampering rescue efforts? Is this the same as not yielding to a fire engine responding to an emergency?

Re:As someone on a Search & Rescue team

A person calling 911 and asking for help is explicitly asking to be found. If AT&T really did that, they should be sued for reckless endangerment. There's simply no excuse for that.

In cases of a third-party report of the person being missing, that's a little different. That said, it is still better to err on the side of caution and send someone to find the person. Upon finding the missing person, the police should be obligated to reveal who is looking for him/her, and if the missing person says "I don't want to be found by him/her," the police should be obligated by law to report that and only that to the person looking for him/her. There should also be protections in place to prevent a corrupt police officer from falsely claiming that someone reported a person missing in order to stalk that person. That's a reasonable balance between safety and privacy for most sane people.

Simple Solution

If the telco is required to inform the customer each time their location is provided to law enforcement (or anyone else), that will stop abuse. If I'm stuck in a ditch, a text message to the effect that my location has just been provided to assist in my rescue isn't going to upset me.

Re:Franklin?

I entirely agree. And this is the perfect example too.

To everyone else, of course, if I were missing, yeah I'd want my telco to help find me. And yes of course my safety is more important than my privacy and more important than the many many many ways in which this can be abused.

But honestly folks, when was the last time that you went missing? How many times do you risk getting kidnapped? I'm not living out in the middle of nowhere where I accidentally dangle from a cliff. And I'm not in any sort of a dangerous city. And 90% of those dangers don't provide for the time to be rescued.

So we're talking about a time when I need rescuing, and my government has the time to realize that I'm missing and then to actually find me. Come on. When does that happen?

I'll tell you when it happens. It happens when a friend or family member is expecting me to be somewhere, and I'm a few hours late and unreachable. That's not police asking the telco, it's pretty much my next of kin.

Now I have no problem organize a list of people, to whom I grant the power of grey skull to be given my mobile phone's location. Quite frankly, I think that's a great idea in general. But it won't be my government. It'll be my parents, my children, my wife, a few crazy-close friends, my business partners, and perhaps a really good neighbour. Oh, and my doctor and my lawyer. In other words, people who already have a key to my home, a code to my alarm, power of attorney, or some equivalent level of trust that far over-shadow my location as a point of privacy.

Re:Franklin?

Now I have no problem organize a list of people, to whom I grant the power of grey skull to be given my mobile phone's location. Quite frankly, I think that's a great idea in general. But it won't be my government. It'll be my parents, my children, my wife, a few crazy-close friends, my business partners, and perhaps a really good neighbour. Oh, and my doctor and my lawyer. In other words, people who already have a key to my home, a code to my alarm, power of attorney, or some equivalent level of trust that far over-shadow my location as a point of privacy.

I know! Lets ask some commonly-trusted community representative to act on behalf of all these people that could be concerned about your whereabouts. Some group that has a reasonable idea of law and procedure for these kind of things, and could be held accountable to some degree if they try and abuse said trust...... then anyone - anyone, not just those on your list - genuinely concerned for your whereabouts, could contact these representatives for help and make their case for further assistance. The telcos - having dealt with said representatives semi-regularly - would already have a relatively trusting arrangement with them, knowing already that they wouldn't generally ask if it wasn't generally necessary, with the overall setup saving time and hassles when someone has a legitimate concern for your safety.

Note then that this setup doesn't require any action or upkeep from you, in case you forget to keep your list of friends/doctors/lawyers/neighbors/good samaritians in sync with the telcos list.

Re:But "It's for the children!"

Yes, with skull mounted trackers we'd finally have the correct answer to the question "It's 10pm. Do you know where your children are?". You'd just whip out the offspring locater, press a few buttons, and you'd know instantly where they are.

Or at least where their skull is.