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Comment by Chromozon | Hacker News Reader

How is this any different than having the police go from business to business asking for security camera footage, analyzing the footage over a time period, connecting faces to names, and then going out and questioning those people? Both seem to be ways of tracking who is in an area at a given time, but geofencing is a significantly more efficient method.

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Two reasons, mostly dealing with scope.

Security cameras can't see through walls to people with a reasonable expectation of privacy. A crime being committed down the street doesn't give the government the right to my webcam.

I would argue that the geofencing method collects a far greater number of people in the initial sweep, and has way more potential for misuse or straight out abuse. IMO, there are too many examples of law enforcement abusing their power, even lying and fabricating evidence, for the sake of arresting somebody, so they can close a case? I don't think they can be trusted with sweeping technologies like arbitrary geofence warrants or even (flawed) facial recognition.

I think in certain extreme cases I would be ok with geofence warrants, but as the article mentions they are being used with increasing regularity.

>How is this any different than having the police go from business to business asking for security camera footage

But can they get a warrant? Some business owners might say yes, but are they free to say no?

Without a warrant, they are absolutely free to say no.

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