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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that law enforcement agencies must obtain a valid warrant before conducting geographic searches, reaffirming that probable cause is required to subpoena cellphone location data.
The decision is in Chatri v. United States It held that users’ digital on-device location data is especially important since the Constitution places limits on the government’s ability to access tracking data from technology companies. In ruling 6-3 (PDF) Written by Justice Elena Kagan, the Supreme Court found that “an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records relating to the location of his or her mobile phone” and that geolocation orders “intrude upon that constitutionally protected interest.”
Privacy experts celebrated the decision. Alan Butler, CEO of Electronic Privacy Information Centersaid in a statement after the ruling: “EPIC applauds the Supreme Court’s recognition that warrantless geographic searches fundamentally conflict with the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.”
Geofence orders and constitution
Geofencing is generally implemented by law enforcement officials when there are no clear suspects in a case. Police will draw a shape on a map around the crime scene, set a time window to inquire about and submit a geolocation warrant to a tech giant requesting information about any connected devices located within those fences during that period.
After forwarding this information to any suspects or suspicious individuals, police can subpoena additional account details (email addresses, phone numbers, usernames, and more) associated with devices within the geofence.
The court ruling concluded that users do not necessarily voluntarily share their private information with a company like Google, which means… Third party doctrine (PDF) – The legal principle that people have no expectation of privacy does not apply when it comes to data that is willingly shared with others.
As a result, the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, protects against the current iteration of geolocation warrants. Those commands are It is much less strict and has fewer legal guardrails Of traditional search warrants.
Importantly, the Supreme Court did not explicitly prohibit law enforcement geolocation; Instead, police must already have probable cause about the suspect and obtain a search warrant to use geolocation data more narrowly.
Critics point out that geofencing not only traps potential suspects, but collects location data from everyone in the area. In cases where law enforcement draws boundaries around a large portion of a map, an agency may request information about millions of people at a time.
Geofencing has been referred to as a type of… Reverse lookupbecause authorities use location data to link a crime to a suspect, rather than naturally discovering evidence that might indicate the suspect was in the area when the crime was committed.
Google, one of the most frequently called out tech companies, has taken its own steps toward protecting itself from geofencing orders in recent years, moving users’ location data away from… Sensorvolt servers And transfer it to users’ devices. However, police can still issue arrest warrants to individuals for subpoenaing location information from their phones.
If this doesn’t sound like the type of geofencing you’re used to, that’s because the term is used colloquially to describe many use cases for location-based technology. It can also refer to the technology behind it Smart home controls Or the advertising practices of big tech companies. The Supreme Court’s decision applies only to arrest warrants.
How did this situation arrive?
the The case is referred to the Supreme Court It depended on Chatri v. United States (PDF). The plaintiff in the case, Okello T. Chatri, was arrested in 2019 after police linked him to a $195,000 bank robbery. Law enforcement requested data from Google, to determine the location of devices around the bank during the time of the robbery. The list of potential suspects was reduced from 19 people to just three, which ultimately led to Chattri’s arrest.
Chatery’s lawyer, Adam Yunikowski, Argue (PDF) Police had no probable cause to comb through his client’s information, instead resorting to “tools that allowed the government to search first and raise suspicions later.”
Even if the data was found independently of the geolocation search, Yunikovsky argued (PDF), a follow-up order would be unconstitutional because probable cause still does not exist to “search the virtual private papers of every person within the geofence simply because of their proximity to the crime.”
It is unclear how the new precedent might affect the outcomes of previous cases, including Chatri’s. Previous courts have ruled that Chatri’s sentence would not be changed because the geolocation evidence was obtained in good faith, but the Supreme Court’s ruling leaves the validity of the arrest warrant in doubt.
Chatri’s case goes back to the lower appellate court, which will decide whether probable cause exists for the geolocation order. A representative for Shatri’s legal team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
