
Minnesota authorities are using contact tracing apps to arrest protestors - xoxoy
https://twitter.com/nbcnews/status/1266758240018276352
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timmaxw
Are you sure they're using contact tracing _apps_? The original tweet says:

> Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington says they've begun
> contact tracing arrestees.

> "Who are they associated with? What platforms are they advocating for? ...
> Is this organized crime? ... We are in the process right now of building
> that information network."

I interpreted that to mean ordinary detective work. I don't see any indication
that they're using data from COVID-19 contact tracing apps on arrestees'
smartphones, which is what the Hacker News title seems to imply.

~~~
salawat
Regardless, you should assume that that data can and will be used in a court
of law if some bright, tech savvy detective has the brilliant idea to do so.
The fact that a certain bunch of id's was encountered by the contact tracing
app on your phone (because obviously they have access to the data on other
arrestee's phones) will greatly strengthen their eventual case against you.

Frankly, it's an investigator's dream tool. This is why I was never in favor
of the measure in the first place. Without an extreme level of discipline from
investigators, there is no guarantee they won't use the tool. Furthermore,
given what we know of parallel construction as a technique, we're already in
waters where we can't even say that there's a good chance it isn't being
misused, but having it's misuse covered up.

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nojito
Headline is wrong.

They are just doing detective work to figure out why out of state individuals
are engaging in this.

No mention of “apps”

