Could Google's Push for Digital Privacy Changes Affect Law Enforcement?

Whenever a new technology emerges that could help police officers or public safety workers do their job more effectively, it's almost inevitable that privacy concerns will arise. And Google, being at the forefront of Internet and technology privacy issues, stated on its blog that it will take a three-pronged approach to technology privacy -- one of which includes how the law currently views much of the content stored online. And this change could affect how officers of the law perform investigations.

Google will uphold its transparency policy and strict request for information process, but the company also stated it would advocate for updating laws such as the U.S. Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), “so the same protections that apply to your personal documents that you keep in your home also apply to your email and online documents.” If implemented, this would likely require government investigators to obtain a search warrant when requesting access to old emails and messages stored online -- something the ECPA doesn't currently account for.