The Supreme Court has agreed to review the constitutionality of geofence warrants, which allow police to access large amounts of cellphone location data to identify individuals near crime scenes.
Lower courts have differing opinions on whether this practice violates the 4th Amendment, which prohibits sweeping warrants.
One case the high court will consider involves Okello Chatrie, who was convicted of bank robbery in Virginia in 2019. Police identified Chatrie after obtaining cellphone location data from Google for devices near the bank within an hour of the robbery. The appeals argue that these warrants may also obtain anonymized location data from millions of people not involved in crimes.
Eight years prior, the Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement generally needed probable cause before accessing cellphone tower data to identify suspects. Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority for that decision, while Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissented.
Chatrie's attorneys have stated that magistrate judges and tech companies require clear rules regarding geofence warrants. The federal government has contended that these warrants do not constitute a 4th Amendment search and notes that users typically opt in to location services.
Google, a primary recipient of these warrants, updated its policy last year, making it more challenging to comply with such data requests. The federal government informed the Supreme Court that this policy change significantly reduces the future frequency of geofence warrant issues, suggesting the case may be moot.