Can Cops Track Down A4A Profiles?

[Prime Muscle]

Does anyone know with some level of certainty if cops can track someone down based on an A4A profile, or something similar? What about this site??

 

I always assumed that cops could subpoena the site and get the email and credit card information if its a paid site but what about free sites where there is no credit card and the user uses yahoo mail or a free email service? In those cases can the cops get to the IP addresses and track you down? Do yahoo, a4a and others even save ip addresses? Does A4A even save the messages for that matter?

[Zman]

IDK but I can't imagine why they couldn't. There are no secrets on the net.

[Mocha]

There's a section on their contact page that says something along the lines of: "if you're an attorney or law enforcement and need assistance..."

 

But I'd think that's for real crimes. Not for having an escort Pro Ad.

[rguer]

That seems unlikely to me.

 

It seems likely to me. Difficult, perhaps very difficult, but not impossible.

 

It would be from traffic analysis, probably. They might not be able to do it retrospectively, but for all we know all traffic in and out of A4A is monitored and recorded already. They might not even need to look at content.

 

The A4A user agreement says "This Agreement is entered into in the Province of Quebec, Canada." A cop would have to subpoena a Canadian judge, according to Canadian law. If I'm correct, on top of that prostitution is legal in Canada. It seems difficult to me to find the right legal basis for the subpoena. Also, Canada has very strict privacy legislation. A4A cannot supply information to others as they please.

 

He didn't ask "Can they do it legally?".

 

And I don't know the legal status of traffic monitoring. That's the equivalent of looking at the outside of envelopes in the mail, which I think is allowed. It doesn't tell you the contents of the letter, but collect enough data and you'll be able to detect patterns.

[rguer]

Traffic analysis: http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/