Peru gives police power to track locations of cellphones in real time, without warrants
Peru gives police power to track locations of cellphones in real time, without warrants
Frank Bajak, The Associated Press
Published Monday, July 27, 2015 9:30PM EDT
LIMA, Peru -- Peru's government on Monday ordered telecommunications companies to grant police warrantless access to cellphone users' locations and other call data in real time and store that data for three years, a decree that civil libertarians called an unconstitutional invasion of privacy.
The government published the legislative decree on a national holiday and a day before Peru's independence day celebrations, when schools, government offices and most businesses are closed. Its contents were not debated in Congress and it was enacted under special powers that lawmakers recently granted to President Ollanta Humala's government.
Activist Katitza Rodriguez of the Electronic Frontier Foundation said she had not seen "any legal provision anywhere that stripped geolocation data of constitutional communications privacy protections as explicitly" as the Peruvian decree.
It follows a global pattern of governments seeking to fast-track surveillance legislation without public debate, said Rodriguez, the foundation's international rights director.
More:
http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/peru-gives-police-power-to-track-locations-of-cellphones-in-real-time-without-warrants-1.2490490
Place your bets on whether or not the right-wing troll brigade will ooze here to shriek and pitch fits over the fact that the Peruvian Congress allocated special powers to Humala so he could push this decree through.
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