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Tech tool offers police ‘mass surveillance on a budget’

AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin A crime scene unit van sits outside the Rockingham County Sheriff's Department in Wentworth, N.C., on Saturday, July 23, 2022. The rural county of just 91,000 residents subscribes to the powerful Fog Reveal service, which gives police the power to track cellphones, sometimes without a warrant. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed) A cruiser sits in a parking lot outside police headquarters in Greensboro, N.C., on Wednesday, June 22, 2022. The city decided to let lapse its contract with Fog Reveal, a powerful phone-tracking tool that some advocates fear violates people's privacy rights. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed) Former police data analyst Davin Hall quit the Greensboro, N.C., police force in part over its use of Fog Reveal, a powerful cellphone-tracking tool. “The capability that it had for bringing up just anybody in an area whether they were in public or at home seemed to me to be a very clear violation of the Fourth Amendment,” Hall said. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed) Former police data analyst Davin Hall uses the Waze navigation app while driving through Greensboro, N.C., on Wednesday, June 22, 2022. Hall quit the city's police force in part over its use of Fog Reveal, a powerful cellphone-tracking tool that the company says uses data from apps like Waze to track mobile devices. A Waze spokesperson said the company has not heard of Fog and has no relationship to it. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed) A lamp shines outside police headquarters in Greensboro, N.C., on Wednesday, June 22, 2022. The city recently let lapse its contract for Fog Reveal, a powerful cellphone-tracking tool that some advocates fear violates people's privacy rights. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed) AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin
Tech tool offers police ‘mass surveillance on a budget’