Waymo Tells Cops: ‘Get A Warrant’

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the cops-now-being-taunted-by-robots dept

Despite being the somewhat crispied face of (extremely limited) unrest in Los Angeles in response to ICE activity, Waymo hasn’t suddenly decided it’s time to get snitchin’.

In fact, it’s chosen to go the other direction, as Riley McDermid reports for Gizmodo:

Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana recently emphasized that the company will challenge, limit, or reject robotaxi footage requests from law enforcement that are not backed by a valid legal process, such as a warrant or court order.

She stressed that while the company “follows the legal process to receive footage,” it reserves the right to push back on overly broad or undefined demands—a move aimed at preserving rider trust.

This is pretty remarkable for at least a couple of reasons. First, as noted above, Waymo’s cars got set on fire pretty frequently in Los Angeles, prompting the company to shut down service until the violence (most of it provoked by police) in downtown LA subsided a bit.

Second, the average Waymo car is a surveillance conveyance:

Each Waymo vehicle is outfitted with 29 external cameras, offering a comprehensive 360-degree view, and potentially additional internal sensors.

That definitely makes these vehicles tasty targets for law enforcement. And when cops start pounding on the virtual doors virtually non-stop in search of all this stuff, the most common response from tech companies is to simply open up, rather than demand to see some paperwork.

Caveat, the third: Waymo says warrants or “court orders.” There are plenty of court orders that don’t contain the protections of a warrant. A subpoena, for example, doesn’t need probable cause to be established. Things not considered covered by the Fourth Amendment (but rather the Third Party Doctrine) can be obtained without a judicially authorized warrant: things like route and passenger data that may not specifically identify passengers, but give the government enough other data (including payment info) that could identify passengers in Waymo cars.

That being said, it’s nice to see a tech company that had every reason to make cops its best friends (see also: the burning cars referenced above) decide it cares more about the privacy of its passengers than the well-being of its automated automobiles.

HOWEVER:

By making this demand of law enforcement, Waymo may be setting up the entire nation for another limitation of Fourth Amendment rights. Between the Third Party Doctrine and the automobile exception, cops may decide to press the issue in court after their warrantless demands for data are rebuffed, citing both of the above doctrines in support of their claims.

The automobile exception tends to lower the standard for searches from “probable cause” to “reasonable suspicion” under the assumption that vehicles traveling on public roads are not generally afforded an “expectation of privacy.” That’s why cops can look in windows and run drug dogs around cars and perform inventory searches of any vehicles they choose to tow.

The Third Party Doctrine says information voluntarily given to other people (including companies like Waymo) also isn’t covered by an expectation of privacy. Even if there’s no other option but to give Waymo your address, payment information, personal identification, phone number, etc. just to be able to hitch a ride, most courts consider this to be a “voluntary” relinquishment of otherwise private information. After all, you can always just walk.

Given all of this, we’ll have to see where this goes from here. It’s unclear at this point whether Waymo data/recordings are useful enough to law enforcement to make this something worth fighting in court. But no matter how things play out going forward, it’s nice to know a company has decided to put its foot down before its customers have asked it to. Too many companies only decide to do this after weeks or months of negative press, if they bother to do it at all. Waymo’s warrant demands may ultimately prove to be short-lived, but the fact that it’s pushing back means this company is similarly as sick of this administration and its bullshit, and won’t allow its vehicles to become nothing more than proxy snoops for cops.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, data retention, driverless cars, privacy, third party doctrine
Companies: waymo