Privacy advocates and career criminals alike are in a lather over reports that between September 2008 and October 2009, Sprint Nextel ponied up customer location data to various law enforcement agencies more than 8 million times. Speaking at ISS World 2009 (a conference for law enforcement and telecom industry-types responsible for “lawful interception, electronic investigations and network Intelligence gathering”), Sprint Nextel’s very own Paul Taylor, Manager of Electronic Surveillance, lamented on the sheer volume of requests the company’s received in the past year for precise GPS data for Sprint customers. How did the company meet such high demand? Apparently, his team built a special “web interface” which “has just really caught on fire with law enforcement.” We’re glad that Sprint’s plans to streamline the customer service experience don’t stop short of those who serve and protect, but as the EFF points out, plenty of nagging questions remain, including: How many individual customers have been affected? Is Sprint demanding search warrants? How secure is this web interface? Check out an excerpt from Taylor’s speech after the break.
Are you surprised about this?
not really.
I would love to see some stats about people getting busted for drugs etc because of cellphones(text,calls,gps)
Big Brother is here to stay. I can’t believe how many cameras are being put up around here and I’m not just talking about the blue light districts either.
makes me curious if there is a big difference between sprint and other carriers. That would be the smoking gun in the article. Something like Sprint: 8m At&T: 25k LOL
Figured.
In terms of law enforcement relations, I highly doubt it.
Maybe more criminals like sprint?
thats how that bar in nt got busted
sprint is a budget carrier. cheap, and they dont really care about credit.
yea I wasn’t trying to make the realdeal reference…
:spank: thought that was Cricket
Does Tiger have sprint?
Really could give
“BOOST, Where you at?”
new meaning…
5-OHH!!!
Do cops even have to try anymore?
So you don’t carry your phone with you when you want to kill someone. No big deal I hate carrying my cell anyways.
Not with craiglist and technology lol. Hell onstar can turn off / stop cars!
all the cops saw Officer Brian O’Connor got to trace nextel phones and wanted in on the action.
every sprint phone I have owned has a GPS on or off function right on the phone. It is set on by default. I just leave mine on, i suppose in case I get lost in some mountain range that happens to have sprint coverage.