U.S. Government Secretly Issuing ‘Keyword Warrants’ To Google To Monitor What Users Search For

U.S. government officials are are said to be secretly issuing warrants to Google, requiring the company to provide user data on anyone who types in specific search terms. 

The controversial tactic, which has been employed in secret to track down criminals for years, was exposed on Tuesday in court documents that were "accidentally released," according to Forbes.

The existence of such warrants has so far only been made public in a few instances, the most recent of which stemmed from a 2019 investigation in Wisconsin, in which investigators were looking for men accused of participating in the abuse and sexual trafficking of a minor.

Google was forced to disclose the user names and IP addresses of anybody who searched three names, a phone number, or an address associated with the victim of the Wisconsin kidnapping case over a 16-day period, according to reports.

Google is required to respond to thousands of warrant requests each year, but keyword warrants are a relatively new approach employed by the government and are viewed as problematic by many.

As Jennifer Granick, surveillance and cybersecurity counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, explained to Forbes, "trawling through Google's search history database allows police to identify people based on what they might have been thinking about, for whatever reason, at some point in the past."

Google did supply authorities with the information, although it is unclear how many individuals' names were turned over to authorities. 

The inquiry is still ongoing, and the warrant was one of the documents obtained by Forbes that had not been sealed. 

After being contacted for comment, the Department of Justice said they were not even aware that it had been made public. 

Aside from the Wisconsin case documents, only two other keyword warrants have been released prior to the case materials being temporarily made public. 

Last year, police investigating an arson attack outside the home of a witness in the R Kelly trial obtained a list of IP addresses associated with searches for the residence of the arson victim from Google. The list was shared with the prosecution.

In a statement to Forbes, Jennifer Granick, surveillance and cybersecurity counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said: "This never-before-possible technique threatens First Amendment interests and will inevitably sweep up innocent people, especially if the keyword terms are not unique and the time frame is not precise."