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SPEAKER: A tool that police are increasingly using around crime scenes could give them access to your cell phone data. Over the last year, police departments have been asking judges to approve what are called reverse location search warrants. These warrants allow police to collect cell phone data near crime scenes. Civil liberties experts worry about privacy and overreach. But police say it's an important new crime-fighting tool.

Data Journalist Tony Webster reported this story. You can read it online now at mprnews.org. He joins me now in the studio with more. Tony, good to have you here.

TONY WEBSTER: Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER: So I imagine a lot of listeners, this is a new phrase, reverse location search warrant. What are we talking about here?

TONY WEBSTER: Your phone might be keeping track of everywhere you go if you have an Android phone or an iPhone with certain apps like Google Maps installed. Police are now turning to that data, using it to find suspects who are near the scene of crimes. It's called a reverse location search warrant because, normally, a search warrant targets an individual suspect, and it's just looking for evidence of their crimes.

But with a reverse location search warrant, that's casting a bigger net, ordering Google to search its database to find anyone in certain areas over certain times. This is a pretty new practice in Minnesota. Since August, police in the Twin Cities have obtained about 22 of these warrants, investigating everything from robberies and home invasion to overnight break-in, thefts at retail stores.

SPEAKER: So anyone who was in the area at the time of these incidents, they can have their data turned over to police?

TONY WEBSTER: Yes, but police say privacy is protected because Google only provides them anonymous data, pinpoints on a map of where you were and when but without your name. Police look at these digital trails. And if any catch their eye, they go back to a judge and get a second warrant, ordering Google to turn over that person's identity and even more of their location history.

SPEAKER: Give us an example here of where a judge has issued one of these warrants.

TONY WEBSTER: So one prominent case was a home invasion in Eden Prairie last October. To try to identify the suspects, police used one of these reverse location search warrants, ordering Google to turn over information on anyone who was in the area of the home or anyone near the area of two food markets that the victims owned. Police cast a very wide net with this case. And the warrant would have scooped up data on potentially tens of thousands of people. If you went through the intersection of University and Dale in St. Paul during that period of time, you would be within this net.

SPEAKER: Wow.

TONY WEBSTER: There was one trail that did catch law enforcement's eye. A phone was spotted outside the victim's home. It appeared to move sort of closer to their Wi-Fi router and then disappeared off the map as the 911 call came in. They went back to a judge and got an order telling Google to turn over that person's name and even more of their data.

In that case, police did already have a suspect in mind. And federal charges are now pending against three people alleged to have been involved. So it's hard to tell how helpful this technique was in that case. But you can see why police are very interested in it.

SPEAKER: OK. So you've told us why police see value in using this tool. But what are the concerns here, the privacy concerns? And who's raising them?

TONY WEBSTER: Civil liberties advocates and lawyers are very concerned about this. They say it violates people's privacy and the Fourth Amendment, possibly a state law as well. They're especially concerned that this practice could capture information on totally innocent people who were in an area for legitimate purposes.

One lawyer I spoke with said this really violates the trust that we have with our devices and said that Google as a company is not being very clear when they get consent from users to track everywhere they go. And they also said that many people would be surprised to see how much information has been captured on them. There are links in our story to where users can go to check these settings and see what Google has saved on them.

Sometimes the data Google provides is not very accurate, making it difficult for police to tell if it's really their suspect. And some folks I spoke with are really uncomfortable with a lot of information being handed over to the government when police don't have much certainty. When police do go back to uncover a name, they are frequently asking for web browsing activity, billing information, history of where that person has been for a couple of months.

SPEAKER: And we should be clear here that a judge has to review these as well, right?

TONY WEBSTER: That's right. These warrants are brought to a judge. But lawyers I spoke with say it's not clear that those judges really understand what they're signing. This is a new practice, new technology.

In the majority of these cases, police aren't filing a map showing exactly the geographic area that are being covered by these warrants. And they're providing sets of long strings of numbers, geographic coordinates. And in some cases, judges are signing these warrants within minutes of them being applied for. The civil liberties lawyers I spoke with all said that judges were ultimately the firewall here. And it's really important they understand these technologies.

SPEAKER: Data Journalist Tony Webster, thank you very much.

TONY WEBSTER: Thank you.

SPEAKER: Tony's complete story is online now at mprnews.org.