Monday, April 2, 2012

ACLU releases report on cell site data use by law enforcement

The American Civil Liberties Union recently released a report on the use of cell site data information by law enforcement agencies around the country. The group examined whether the surveyed agencies used CSLI, the standard (probable cause or less) by which they obtained it, and which used specific practices (such as getting the phone company to release a list of all phone numbers connected to a certain tower at a given time (called a "tower dump")).

Also included are the public records requests for each agency that has responded, easily accessible by map. Those documents reveal prices charged by phone companies for each type of request. According to documents obtained from the Tucson Police Department, the following are examples of charges:

  • Tower Dump from Alltel - $500
  • Tower Dump and Subscriber Information from T-Mobile - $150/tower/hr
  • E911 Tracking from AT&T - $100 activation, $25/day

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