Commercial geolocation datasets

Evidence rule

This page is public-interest research. An argument grade is not a court finding. A watchdog page describes the device. It is not proof a Nevada agency bought it or turned a feature on. A product description is not a Nevada practice. Agencies are not merged: the City of Las Vegas Department of Public Safety, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, the Clark County School District, the City of Reno, and the Nevada Department of Public Safety stay separate. A hotlist hit is not a confirmed crime. Legal review of this page is unverified.

What it does

A commercial geolocation dataset is a file or a login that contains many people’s location history, sold as a product. An agency can buy the dataset instead of serving a warrant on a phone company. The seller is a broker, not the carrier.

Privacy watchdog concerns

Electronic Privacy Information Center. Closing the Data Broker Loophole: Government Evasion of the Fourth Amendment. EPIC says agencies buy broker profiles, including geolocation, healthcare data, and browsing history, and treat the purchase as outside the warrant requirement. This is EPIC’s claim. It is not a holding and not a Nevada contract.
Electronic Frontier Foundation. Fog Data Science Puts our Fourth Amendment Rights up for Sale. EFF says Fog sells phone-location data to police and that an area search is the equivalent of a geofence. EFF says a warrant should be required to look up one device and that dragnet area searches raise a Fourth Amendment problem. EFF says location data cannot be anonymized. This is EFF’s argument. Carpenter is not a holding about Fog.

Constitutional issues

Unresolved question

Fourth Amendment, Nevada Constitution art. 1, § 18

Warrant practice not established for a Nevada agency

Commercial geolocation datasets: No commercial dataset other than the reported Fog contract is documented. Carpenter does not decide a purchased dataset. EPIC says agencies use the third-party doctrine to buy this kind of data. That is EPIC’s claim, not a holding.

Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018). Does not decide this technology. United States Supreme Court. Carpenter addressed historical cell-site location information from a carrier. It does not decide advertising-identifier or broker location data.
United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012). Analogical constitutional argument. United States Supreme Court. Jones decided a GPS device attached to a vehicle. Concurrences discuss longer tracking. The mosaic theory is not a majority rule. The analogy to a broker feed is unresolved.
United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 (1983). Counterauthority. United States Supreme Court. Knotts did not treat public-road beeper tracking as a Fourth Amendment violation on its facts. It is not a holding that a broker feed is lawful.

Statutes attached to read, not findings.

NRS Chapter 239. Nevada public-records law is the route to ask for contracts, policies, and logs. Citing it is not a finding that a surveillance practice is unlawful.
Nevada Constitution art. 1, § 18. State search-and-seizure provision. This page does not quote the section. No section anchor was verified. It is listed only where a search question is actually implicated.
42 U.S.C. § 1983. A civil remedy for a deprivation of federal rights under color of state law. It is not a warrant statute, and it does not itself make a surveillance practice unlawful.

Nevada use

Not documented on this page except the Fog contract, which is on the Fog card.

Capability except for the Fog contract, which is not repeated here as a second deployment.

Next record

Commercial geolocation datasets: Keep the Fog contract on its own card. Ask other agencies whether they buy a different dataset.

All devices. A document workflow for this page is not built. The arrest correction form is not a surveillance-document inbox. Corrections and source documents for this page follow the corrections policy. Corrections policy.