News that Google will soon move its users’ location data to their devices was met with cautious praise.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has challenged the constitutionality of geofence warrants in court, said in a blog post that “for now, at least, we’ll take this as a win.”
But the EFF noted that there are other ways that Google can still turn over sensitive personal data on its users.
Law enforcement uses similar legal demands, dubbed “reverse keyword” warrants, to identify Google accounts that searched for a particular keyword in time, such as prior to a crime being committed.
Google has not said if it plans to close the loophole that allows police and law enforcement to serve so-called “reverse keyword” warrants for users’ search queries.