[Infowarrior] - NYPD Is Amassing Trove of Cellphone Logs

[Richard Forno]

City Is Amassing Trove of Cellphone Logs

By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN

Published: November 26, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/nyregion/new-york-city-police-amassing-a-trove-of-cellphone-logs.html?hpw

When a cellphone is reported stolen in New York, the Police Department routinely subpoenas the phone’s call records, from the day of the theft onward. The logic is simple: If a thief uses the phone, a list of incoming and outgoing calls could lead to the suspect.

But in the process, the Police Department has quietly amassed a trove of telephone logs, all obtained without a court order, that could conceivably be used for any investigative purpose.

The call records from the stolen cellphones are integrated into a database known as the Enterprise Case Management System, according to Police Department documents from the detective bureau. Each phone number is hyperlinked, enabling detectives to cross-reference it against phone numbers in other files.

The subpoenas not only cover the records of the thief’s calls, but also encompass calls to and from the victim on the day of the theft. In some cases the records can include calls made to and from a victim’s new cellphone, if the stolen phone’s number has been transferred, three detectives said in interviews.

Police officials declined to say how many phone records are contained in the database, or how often they might have led to arrests. But police documents suggest that thousands of subpoenas have been issued each year, with each encompassing anywhere from dozens to hundreds of phone calls.

For example, T-Mobile, which has a smaller market share than some of its competitors, like Verizon, fulfilled 297 police subpoenas issued in January 2012, according to a police document.

To date, phone companies have appeared willing to accede to the Police Department’s requests for large swaths of call records. Memos issued Sept. 28 by the chief of detectives, Phil T. Pulaski, instruct detectives to prepare subpoenas for stolen phones assigned to AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile or Metro-PCS. With these carriers, the police do not generally seek the victims’ consent; in fact, the subpoenas are executed without the victims’ knowledge. (It does not appear that subpoenas are issued when the stolen phone is served by Sprint Nextel. In those cases, detectives are instructed to ask the victim to fill out consent forms that authorize Sprint Nextel to release call records and location information to the police.)

“If large amounts of victim phone records are being collected and added to a searchable database, it’s very troubling,” said Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who represents wireless carriers, in a phone interview.

“We’re all used to the concept of growing databases of criminal information,” Mr. Sussmann, of the firm Perkins Coie, said, “but now you’re crossing over that line and drawing in victim information.”

Police officials would not say if detectives had used the call records of any cellphone theft victims in the course of investigating other crimes. Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, did not reply to more than half a dozen requests for comments.

The practice of accumulating the phone numbers in a searchable database is “eye-opening and alarming,” a civil rights lawyer, Norman Siegel, said when told of the protocol for subpoenaing phone records. “There is absolutely no legitimate purpose for doing this. If I’m an innocent New Yorker, why should any of my information be in a police database?”

Mr. Siegel also said the Police Department should not be permitted to hold on to phone records indefinitely if the records were not relevant to active criminal investigations.

Nationwide, cellphone carriers reported receiving about 1.5 million requests from law enforcement for various types of subscriber information in 2011.

Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who is co-chairman of the Bipartisan Congressional Privacy Caucus, began seeking information this year about how cellular carriers handle law enforcement’s requests for subscriber information. And on Thursday, a Senate committee will consider changes to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

Mr. Sussmann suggested that the Police Department could limit its subpoenas to phone calls beginning on the hour, not the day, of the theft, and ending as soon as the victim has transferred the number to a new phone.

According to documents reviewed by The New York Times, the police subpoenas seek call records associated with the telephone number of the stolen phone.

As a result, three detectives said in interviews, the phone companies’ response sometimes includes call records for not only the stolen phone, but also the victim’s new phone, depending on variables like how quickly the victim transfers the old phone number to a new handset and how many days of calls the subpoena seeks.

One detective said the subpoenas from recent cases typically requested about four days of phone records, but documents reviewed by The Times indicate that the subpoenas can cover longer periods, sometimes as much as two weeks or more.

In interviews, detectives said that if an arrest occurs, it is often a result of earlier investigative steps. Chief Pulaski’s memos from Sept. 28 instruct detectives to use any tracking or location application on the victim’s phone to track down a suspect. Victims are asked to immediately call the phone carrier and learn the details of any phone calls placed after the theft. In addition, detectives ask the victim not to transfer their phone number to a new phone for about four days. Finally, detectives are then required to prepare a subpoena, the results of which usually take a few weeks.

By then, most of the unsolved phone cases have been put on the back burner, and the subpoenaed records seldom lead to an arrest, four current and retired detectives said in interviews.

A version of this article appeared in print on November 27, 2012, on page A25 of the New York edition with the headline: City Is Amassing Trove of Cellphone Logs.

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