Rep aims to limit “stingrays”

Rep. Neal Kurk, known as a crusader for privacy in the New Hampshire legislature, has requested a 2016 bill to limit “stingray” technology. 

Stingrays, also known as cell site simulators, mimic cellphone towers.  This tricks nearby cellphones into transmitting their location and other information.

New Hampshire already has a law that prevents law enforcement from obtaining a cellphone’s location without a warrant.  However, the law does not specifically address stingrays.

Critics of stingrays are particularly concerned about how the technology indiscriminately captures information from any cellphone in the area.  Law enforcement officers are not necessarily required to purge this information about bystanders’ cellphones.

On the other hand, stingrays can help law enforcement track dangerous suspects when they do not yet know the suspect’s phone number.  If police follow the suspect from one location to another, capturing cellphone data at each location, they can cross-reference the list of numbers to identify the suspect’s phone.

The details of Kurk’s bill are not yet public.

Do you think New Hampshire needs to regulate stingrays to protect the privacy of bystanders?  Let us know in the comments.