Law enforcement agencies have come up with a new tactic for investigating crimes: location-based warrants, served on Google, demanding that Google disclose Google accounts in use on all mobile devices that were in a given area at a certain time, thus giving detectives and other LEOs a pool of potential suspects and persons of interest who may have committed or have information about whatever crime they are trying to solve.

Both the Federal Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee heard today from FBI Director James Comey, and from Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates, that they need a backdoor (or a “front door”, as Comey calls it) that allows them to decrypt encrypted email and messages in order to fight terrorism.

Google is making clear how they will be handling warrants and subpoenas for users’ personal information. With January 28th being Data Privacy Day, Google Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, shared three initiatives on the Google blog, which detail how Google plans to protect user privacy when faced with a warrant or subpena to hand over private user information.