As a breaking news reporter, I’ve spent hours sitting on hard courtroom benches listening to testimony from detectives, federal agents and others about how authorities solve crimes.
Among the various technologies police have at their disposal, location data obtained via warrant through cellular carriers and tech companies like Google have become a popular method for investigators to uncover when and where a suspect was during the commission of a crime.
That’s why my colleague Cameron Knight and I started looking into geofence warrants, a relatively novel crime-fighting tool that’s helped law enforcement close the book on serious crimes, but also given them access to the personal information of innocent bystanders.
Phone data: Geofencing helps police investigate crime. What is it telling them about you?
Enquirer breaking news reporters Cameron Knight (left) and Quinlan Bentley (right)
A geofence is a location-based service that uses GPS or other cellular data to create a virtual fence around a geographic location and notes mobile devices that enter. And its use in policing has garnered challenges in the courts.
Court cases show how technology is used. Experts offer their take
To report this story, we looked at how geofence warrants have been used in Ohio courtrooms, as well as the appeals court decisions that could affect the legality of police using such warrants in the future.
While it’s unknown exactly how often police agencies use geofence warrants, they’ve been instrumental in solving serious crimes, including murder and sexual assault, and federal courts have split on the constitutionality of law enforcement’s use of geofence warrants.
We also talked to law and policing experts, including those from the American Civil Liberties Union, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Northern Kentucky University, who weighed in on concerns about the technology’s use in policing, its future and the collection of bystanders’ online information by authorities.
Decade-old missing person case shows advances in police tech
Back in 2023, I covered the trial of Jacob Bumpass, who was found guilty of disposing of and hiding the body of 17-year-old Paige Johnson.
The Northern Kentucky teen died of still-unknown causes in 2010, but her remains weren’t uncovered until nearly a decade later in a wooded area of rural Clermont County.
Jacob Bumpass, was convicted of leaving the body of Northern Kentucky teenager Paige Johnson in a wooded area in 2010 after her disappearance.
Observing the anguish of that trial, one question stuck in my mind: Why did it take so long to find her?
While police used cell tower data to track the movements of Bumpass’ phone around the time of Johnson’s disappearance, even using those records to create a search area at East Fork State Park, they were limited by the technology of the time.
The data was used to prosecute Bumpass, putting him near the crime scene and countering his alibi about dropping the teen off in Covington. Unlike data transmitted to Google through a GPS-enabled cellphone, cell tower pings only show that a device was within a tower’s coverage area, not its precise location.
If investigators had access to more precise location data in 2010, it’s possible the case would’ve been solved much sooner.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Geofence warrants: How we reported on police use, privacy concerns