The FBI demanded that Google turn over the identities of tens of thousands of users who watched certain YouTube videos.
Federal investigators obtained court-ordered subpoenas for any YouTube viewers who watched tutorials on mapping with drones and augmented reality software.
The subpoena included names, addresses, telephone numbers, and browsing history for Google accounts for at least 30,000 people, tracing traffic to the relevant videos for the first week of January 2023.
The government also wanted the IP addresses of non-Google account owners who viewed the videos.
“There is reason to believe that these records would be relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation, including by providing identification information about the perpetrators,” the authorities claimed, according to Forbes.
Google was also told to keep the request secret until it was unsealed earlier this week. It’s unknown if Google complied with the subpoena.
But that wasn’t the only case of the FBI trampling on privacy rights.
Hellbound and Down 