Milwaukee Police Department uses cell-phone station simulators called Stingrays to locate phones within an area.
Cell-site simulators, also known as Stingrays or IMSI catchers, are devices that masquerade as legitimate cell-phone towers, tricking phones within a certain radius into connecting to the device rather than a tower.
Cell-site simulators operate by conducting a general search of all cell phones within the device’s radius, in violation of basic constitutional protections. Law enforcement use cell-site simulators to pinpoint the location of phones with greater accuracy than phone companies and without needing to involve the phone company at all. Cell-site simulators can also log IMSI numbers, (International Mobile Subscriber Identifiers) unique to each SIM card, of all of the mobile devices within a given area. Some cell-site simulators may have advanced features allowing law enforcement to intercept communications.
Read more:
- New Evidence Shows Milwaukee Police Hide Stingray Usage From Courts and Defense
- Milwaukee PD gets next-gen phone surveillance technology
- How Milwaukee Police Do Cell Phone Surveillance
- Stingray: A New Frontier in Police Surveillance
- Stingrays: The Biggest Technological Threat to Cell Phone Privacy You Don't Know About
- Street Level Surveillance: How Cell-Site Simulators Work
This technology is only one reason why we need a Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS) ordinance. CCOPS would require oversight and community input in invasive surveillance technologies, allowing the Wisconsinites being surveilled to make informed decisions about their privacy.
Milwaukee deserves to know how the police are surveilling us. Milwaukee needs CCOPS.
