Child Monitoring and Security Information Archive 2019 - 4.16.45
Home
Do Jails Monitor Phone Calls
Courts are split on whether investigators need a warrant based on probable cause to acquire location data. In some states, a warrant is required for any sort of cellphone tracking. In other states, it is needed only if an investigator wants the data in real time. And in others no warrant is needed at all.
Securus offers the location-finding service as an additional feature for law enforcement and corrections officials, part of an effort to entice customers in a lucrative but competitive industry. In promotional packets, the company, one of the largest prison phone providers in the country, recounts several instances in which the service was used.
Can Jailhouse Phone Calls Be Recorded?
Securus received the data from a mobile marketing company called 3Cinteractive, according to 2013 documents from the Florida Department of Corrections. Securus said that for confidentiality reasons it could not confirm whether that deal was still in place, but a spokesman for Mr. Wyden said the company told the senator’s office it was. In turn, 3Cinteractive got its data from LocationSmart, a firm known as a location aggregator, according to documents from those companies. LocationSmart buys access to the data from all the major American carriers, it says.
Some prosecutors have found it particularly helpful to listen in on the conversations of inmates charged with domestic violence, given how victims and other family members can be pressured to not cooperate with law enforcement.
Monitor My Phone Calls
In Virginia, Neil William Lyness was charged two years ago with two counts of involuntary manslaughter, accused of causing a wrong-way crash in which a mother and daughter died. At the time of the crash, he had four kinds of medication in his system, including a pain reliever called Tramadol. While awaiting trial, Lyness was asked during a recorded jail call how much Tramadol he took. “Who knows,” he said. “I probably did like I did before and ate 50 … ” After that phone call became part of the prosecution’s case, Lyness pleaded guilty instead of going to trial. Then, before sentencing this year, he spoke on the phone with a woman who exhorted him to go into court and show remorse. Lyness laughed, according to The Virginian-Pilot, which wrote up the conversation like this:
“Securus is neither a judge nor a district attorney, and the responsibility of ensuring the legal adequacy of supporting documentation lies with our law enforcement customers and their counsel,” the spokesman said in a statement. Securus offers services only to law enforcement and corrections facilities, and not all officials at a given location have access to the system, the spokesman said.
Iphone App To Monitor Phone Activity
The service provided by Securus reveals a potential weakness in a system that is supposed to protect the private information of millions of cellphone users. With customers’ consent, carriers sell the ability to acquire location data for marketing purposes like providing coupons when someone is near a business, or services like roadside assistance or bank fraud protection. Companies that use the data generally sign contracts pledging to get people’s approval — through a response to a text message, for example, or the push of a button on a menu — or to otherwise use the data legally.