The US Supreme Court restricts use of geofence warrants
Key takeaways
- Unsplash/Tim Mossholder The US Supreme Court just issued a ruling that limits geofence searches by law enforcement agencies, which could have major ramifications for privacy rights across the country.
- Moving forward, law enforcement will have to obtain an actual search warrant to force a tech company into handing over geofence location data.
- The case that led to this decision involves a robbery in Virginia, according to a report by NPR.
Unsplash/Tim Mossholder The US Supreme Court just issued a ruling that limits geofence searches by law enforcement agencies, which could have major ramifications for privacy rights across the country. For the uninitiated, this is a relatively recent law enforcement technique in which police tap into the databases of tech companies to see who was near the scene of a crime.
In the 6-3 ruling, the country's top court said that "an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell-phone location information." Justice Elena Kagan said that geofence warrants violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches. Moving forward, law enforcement will have to obtain an actual search warrant to force a tech company into handing over geofence location data. Search warrants require probable cause, which geofence warrants do not.
The case that led to this decision involves a robbery in Virginia, according to a report by NPR. A man stole $195,000 from a bank and the case went cold until detectives served Google with a geofence warrant. They obtained location information of cellphone users near the bank for the hour before and after the crime was committed.