Google LLC has been helping federal agents by handing over data related to the searches people do online, it was revealed earlier this week.

Court documents show that the company disclosed the IP addresses of anyone who had searched for a certain address where an arson took place. Usually police would need a warrant in order to look at a one individual’s search history, but in this case, Google handed over data relating to anyone who searched certain words.

The data led to Michael Williams, an associate of musician and accused sex offender R. Kelly. Investigators believe that Williams set fire to a car outside a home in Kissimmee, Florida, after traveling to the address from his home in Georgia. After finding Williams via the so-called “keyword warrant,” police tracked his movements on the day of the crime through his phone.

On paper it seems like a job well done, although privacy advocates have aired their concerns regarding what is a reasonable search. Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, told CNET that such searches are likely unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment. It’s one thing targeting an individual and another to request data on anyone who has searched a particular word or words.

Williams has been charged with arson and witness tampering, although his lawyer, Todd Spodek, intends to fight the case on the grounds that his client’s rights were violated. Spodek said that such searches are a worrying precedent, given that people could be caught up in the net for simply Googling something out of curiosity. If a person is ever curious about “witness intimidation” and Googles it, what are the chances they end up on the radar of law enforcement? critics have asked.

“We require a warrant and push to narrow the scope of these particular demands when overly broad, including by objecting in court when appropriate,” Richard Salgado, Google’s director of law enforcement and information security, said in a statement. “These data demands represent less than 1% of total warrants and a small fraction of the overall legal demands for user data that we currently receive.”

Photo: Haywood Beasley/Flickr