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Satnavs stop criminal trail turning cold

2 July 2008

LOCATION data that lingers in the memory of GPS receivers is proving an unexpected boon for crime-fighters.

London’s Metropolitan Police have used information extracted from satnavs to help investigations into kidnaps, the grooming of children, murder and terrorism, according to a paper by forensic analyst Beverley Nutter, to appear in the journal Digital Investigation. The data, stored on memory cards or hard drives, can include hundreds of GPS fixes of a user’s movements, including the location of their home and places they have recently visited.

And since some people couple their satnavs to their cellphones, GPS receivers can also…

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