The U.S. Supreme Court held Monday that law enforcement officers conduct a Fourth Amendment search when they obtain cell phone users’ precise Location History data from Google using a geofence warrant.
In a 6-3 decision in Chatrie v. United States, the Court ruled that Americans have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their cell phone location information, even when that data is stored by a third-party technology company such as Google. The ruling represents one of the Court’s most significant digital privacy decisions since its 2018 Carpenter decision involving historical cell-site location data.
Justice Elena Kagan authored the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Jackson separately concurring.
Justice Neil Gorsuch concurred only in the judgment, while Justice Samuel Alito dissented, joined in part by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Barrett also filed a separate dissent.
This builds directly on the landmark Carpenter v. United States (2018) decision, which already required warrants for cell-site location information (CSLI).
The Court made clear that Google’s even more precise and sweeping Location History data — which logs a user’s location every two minutes or so, within about 20 meters, and can even reveal elevation and which floor of a building someone is on — deserves at least the same protection.
The case, Chatrie v. United States (No. 25-112), arose from a May 20, 2019, armed robbery of a credit union in Midlothian, Virginia. Police had surveillance footage and witness statements but no suspect. On June 14, they obtained a Virginia magistrate’s geofence warrant directed at Google.
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