People v. Wilson

Without government involvement, Google created a system for eliminating child pornography from Google’s services. Employees who found any file depicting child pornography used software to create a unique digital fingerprint, or hash value, for that file and stored the hash value in a database. Thereafter, every time a user uploaded a new file to a Google service, software automatically scanned the file and created a hash value. The software then compared the new file’s hash value to all of the hash values already in the database. If the software detected that the new file’s hash value matched a hash value of previously identified child pornography in the database, the software created and sent a report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). In 2015, Google’s software scanned four files Luke Wilson (defendant) sent via Gmail. Because the hash values of Wilson’s files matched hash values of child-pornography images in Google’s database, Google’s software sent Wilson’s files and a report describing the files’ contents to NCMEC. NCMEC forwarded the files and report to a law-enforcement task force in Wilson’s jurisdiction. A task-force investigator viewed Wilson’s files without a warrant, confirming that the files contained child-pornography images. Based on those images, the investigator obtained and executed a warrant to search Wilson’s residence, finding more incriminating evidence. California charged Wilson with child-pornography offenses. Wilson moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that Google’s scan and the investigator’s subsequent viewing of Wilson’s files violated the Fourth Amendment. The trial court denied the motion. The jury convicted Wilson. Wilson appealed.