US Justice Department Ordered Google To Hand Over Sensitive Data On Users

Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), a civil rights group, "condemns the U.S. Department of Justice for securing a bulk warrant to track every YouTube user who watched completely legal videos about mapping software" . The US Department of Justice obtained a bulk warrant to order Google to hand over the personal information of users who watched specific YouTube videos between January 1st and January 8th, 2023, in what is being referred to as an unconstitutional "digital dragnet".

The Justice Department ordered Google to hand over information including viewing activity, IP addresses, home addresses, telephone numbers and names.

U.S. agents sent a suspect with the handle "elonmuskwhm" publicly available YouTube tutorials on mapping with drones using augmented reality software as a result of their investigation into a user suspected of engaging in money laundering activities, including trading Bitcoin for another currency.

None of the referenced videos in the order is by name; all that was known about them was that they dealt with drone mapping utilising augmented reality software.

Subsequently, the federal authorities obtained information about the viewers of the movies, which had been viewed by different individuals around 30,000 times at that point. Just one live stream attracted roughly 130,000 viewers.

STOP condemned US DoJ for the actions which they see as a violation of digital privacy, stating that "searching thousands of innocent people to look for one suspect violated the Fourth Amendment."