It is perfectly legal to search anything online in most cases, but if those searches are linked to a crime or potential crime, you could get arrested. From there, you could get taken into custody and interrogated at best. At worst, however, you could walk away with criminal charges.
There is a risk of unwanted content popping up on your computer with any Google search, so it is usually only prosecuted as a crime if it is evident that you are actively seeking out such content. Anything that insinuates the creation of homemade bombs or explosives is a cause of concern for counterterrorism.
Can you get arrested for searching the Internet?
Although the search may have been innocent in nature, you may still find yourself talking to police at your door and being told that you’re being arrested.
With an increase in cybersecurity, law enforcement officials are keeping a close eye on certain internet search terms and logging the computer’s IP address that searched for the term.
Can a Google search be used as evidence of a crime?
The judge’s ruling rightly highlights the problems with finding someone guilty of a “conspiracy” or an “attempt” to commit a crime when the evidence of a crime is nothing but words. It’s one thing to use a Google search as evidence of intent or knowledge, when an actual crime has resulted and there’s a real victim.
This of course begs the question “Can search engines like Google and Bing lead to a crime?”
From learning how to cook a certain recipe to conducting research on a historic event for a school report, billions of people throughout the world have used search engines such as Google and Bing to obtain information within a matter of seconds. However, there are some searches and certain words which will prompt a criminal investigation.