People use their smartphones constantly. We use our smartphones to look up things on the internet, take pictures, chat, find certain locations, buy things online, make payments and the list goes on and on. A lot of valuable data and information is generated through our smartphones. This data is eventually stored on our smartphones and the internet. Most people are unaware of the fact that their smartphone data can be used to solve crimes or to put them in jail.
In July 2017 a man called Tjeerd van Seggeren has been found dead. The 37-year old father of three went to a music festival and was eventually found dead in a meadow in De Westereen, Friesland.
After five months the homicide still has not been solved. Still no murder weapon has been found. However, the investigation took a surprising turn and Jessica, the wife of van Seggeren, has been sentenced to 20 years of prison. The police solved the case by using the data stored on the victims’ smartphone and the smartphone of his wife.
The police used a device called the Ufed-analyzer. This device can extract all the data from a smartphone within 20 minutes. Pictures and messages revealed that the couple had relationship problems. In addition, the search history of Jessica showed that she looked up ways how to poison someone. Messages on Tjeerd’s phone did suggest that he was suffering from severe pains and cramps previously. However, this did not kill him.
On the day of the murder, Jessica stated that she was home that night and got into the car after midnight to pick up her husband from the festival. She could not find him at the agreed place, after which she went home and warned family members. She also wasn’t able to contact him since here phone battery died. This turned out not to be true.
The investigation team compared the location history of the two phones and come to a shocking conclusion. Jessica has been near Tjeerd that night and must have seen him, based on the location history on Google Maps. The data on her phone showed that she did not call him while she was looking for him, she lied about turning off her phone, about the return journey and about the period thereafter. According to the judge, Jessica followed a predetermined plan to kill her husband. She met him after the festival, walked into the meadow with him and subsequently killed him in a violent manner.
Do you think that this is privacy infringement or do you applaud the investigation team for coming up with this idea of using smartphone data to solve a case?
Modderkolk, H. (2019). Hoe Google-data in een moordzaak leidden naar de echtgenote. Retrieved September 17, 2019, from https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/hoe-google-data-in-een-moordzaak-leidden-naar-de-echtgenote~b092755e/
Thank you Jasmin for this interesting post. I believe that it is a great thing that more crimes can be solved now due to the use of smartphone data. I can imagine that using smartphone data warrants may become as common as using finger prints to solve crimes in the near future. However, the use of smartphone data warrants, as well as other data-driven warrants are leading to some concerns regarding privacy. Law enforcement could potentially gain access to the data from thousands of innocent people (McKellop 2019). I think a good potential solution to minimize the privacy risks to only provide anonymized data to law enforcement when there is a new warrant. This data will not disclose any specific user details. Only when law enforcement finds potential evidence in the data, the details from the user should become known.
Bibliography
McKellop, M (2019). Why smartphone data warrants are the future of criminal investigation. Retrieved from: https://www.theburnin.com/technology/smartphone-data-warrants-future-criminal-investigation/.