"Supreme Court Rules Geofence Warrants Violate Privacy — A Landmark Decision"

The Supreme Court delivered a landmark privacy ruling today, deciding 6–3 in Chatrie v. US that geofence warrants — the legal orders that compel tech companies to hand over smartphone location data for every device within a virtual perimeter — constitute a Fourth Amendment search requiring constitutional protections.

What the court said

Justice Elena Kagan wrote the majority opinion, holding that individuals have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" in their cell phone location records, even in public spaces:

"An individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records about his cell phone's location, and police intrude on that constitutionally protected interest when they demand the information — even though for only a limited time, and from a third-party tech company."

The court firmly rejected the government's argument that opting into location history is a voluntary choice that waives privacy rights, calling that characterization "meritless." People aren't giving up their Fourth Amendment protections "just by doing the ordinary thing cellphone users do."

The case behind it

The case originated in Richmond, Virginia, where police used a geofence warrant to identify Okello Chatrie as a suspect in an armed bank robbery. Chatrie had opted into Google's location history feature, which recorded his position every few minutes. He was convicted and sentenced to 12 years, but his lawyers argued the search that found him was unconstitutionally broad.

The ruling doesn't automatically overturn Chatrie's conviction — the lower court will now weigh whether the specific warrant was "reasonable" — but it establishes a foundational principle that geofence warrants trigger Fourth Amendment scrutiny.

The scope of the problem

Geofence warrants have become a routine law enforcement tool, allowing police to demand location data for every phone within a specified area during a particular window. The problem is they sweep up everyone — not just suspects. As Google itself acknowledged in court filings, these inquiries "often run a high risk of sweeping in innocent users — sometimes thousands of them."

Justice Sotomayor's concurrence highlighted the sensitivity of location data, noting that even "short-term monitoring" can reveal trips to "the psychiatrist, the plastic surgeon, the abortion clinic, the AIDS treatment center, the strip club, the criminal defense attorney, [or] the by-the-hour motel."

What comes next

This is the first time the Supreme Court has directly addressed geofence warrants since its 2018 Carpenter decision, which established that the government generally needs a warrant to track cell phone location over time. Today's ruling extends that principle to the specific mechanism of geofence warrants.

Privacy advocates are calling it a watershed. Paul Ohm of Georgetown Law said: "Today is a very good day for constitutional privacy. The court reaffirmed that the police need a search warrant to turn private services like Google's location tracking into a state surveillance tool."