Robbery Poses Legal Test for Police Use of Google Location Data

Privacy advocates and criminal defense lawyers are looking to a robbery case in a Virginia federal court as a high-profile legal test for law enforcement’s growing use of location data from Alphabet Inc.'s Google to identify suspects.

The robbery case, which is expected to result in a ruling soon, is considered the first federal example of a criminal defendant challenging the use of a such data as evidence in his indictment. Other courts have weighed in on whether law enforcement should gain access to Google’s location data for their investigations, but few of those opinions are made public or easy ...