Supreme Court Declares Geofence Warrants Fourth Amendment Searches

In a 6-3 ruling in *Chatrie v. United States*, the Supreme Court held that the collection of smartphone location data through geofence warrants constitutes a Fourth Amendment search. Justice Elena Kagan authored the majority opinion, emphasizing that individuals retain a reasonable expectation of privacy in cell-phone location records even when the data are stored by third-party providers.

The Guardian

The decision follows a 2018 Supreme Court ruling that generally requires a warrant to obtain a person’s cellphone location history. Since then, law-enforcement agencies and the FBI have increasingly used geofence warrants to request location data for all devices within a defined geographic “fence” during a specific time frame, often without naming a precise target.

The Guardian

Local police in Richmond, Virginia, pursued armed bank robber Okello Chatrie, who stole $195,000. Investigators employed a geofence warrant to obtain Chatrie’s Google “location history,” a feature he had enabled that logs his position every few minutes. Chatrie pleaded guilty and received a 12-year prison sentence. His lawyers argued that the warrant was overly broad and violated the Fourth Amendment.

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• Justice Elena Kagan – author of the majority opinion.

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• Justice Sonia Sotomayor – wrote a concurring opinion on the depth of personal detail revealed by short-term monitoring.

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• Okello Chatrie – defendant, convicted bank robber.

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• Google – provider of location-history data; acknowledged that geofence searches can sweep thousands of innocent users.

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• Law-enforcement agencies – including local police and the FBI, which rely on geofence warrants to locate suspects and witnesses.

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• Privacy advocates – represented by scholars such as Matthew Tokson of the University of Utah.

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• The government estimated that roughly one-third of active Google account holders have opted into location history.

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• Chatrie’s lawyers cited that this figure translates to more than 500 million users.

The Guardian

• Google reported that geofence searches frequently encompass private homes, apartments, government buildings, hotels, places of worship, and busy roads.

The Guardian

The Court’s majority rejected the government’s claim that short-term data collection does not constitute a search, noting that “a cell-phone user is not to be viewed as sharing private information with third parties…just by doing the ordinary things cell-phone users do.” Law-enforcement officials argued that geofence warrants are essential when investigations reach dead ends. The government contended that individuals lack a reasonable expectation of privacy in public spaces where they permit third-party data collection.

The Guardian

Privacy scholars warned that sweeping warrants could monitor protests, abortion clinics, gun ranges, churches, AA meetings, or doctors’ offices without linking the data to a crime. Google itself acknowledged a high risk of “sweeping in innocent users—sometimes thousands of them.”

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The government’s estimate of one-third of users opting in conflicts with the defense’s claim of over 500 million users. The Court left open whether the warrant’s particularity and probable-cause requirements were satisfied, delegating that question to the appellate court.

The Guardian

The ruling extends Fourth Amendment protections to digital location data, potentially limiting law-enforcement’s ability to conduct broad, data-driven investigations and prompting reassessment of privacy standards for emerging technologies.

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The appellate court will determine whether the specific steps taken in the *Chatrie* warrant met the constitutional requirement of particularity. Legislative bodies may also consider statutory reforms to clarify the scope of geofence warrants.

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• “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,” — Justice Elena Kagan

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• “a wealth of detail about [his] familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations.” — Justice Sonia Sotomayor

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• “If the government doesn’t need to … link something to a crime, it could monitor a protest or an abortion clinic or a gun range or a church or an AA meeting or a doctor’s office,” — Matthew Tokson, Law Professor, University of Utah

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• “That argument ignores how and why Google users turn on location history: Google repeatedly prompts users to turn on the service, often warning that devices will not “work correctly” otherwise, while not disclosing in that prompt how frequently users’ location information would be recorded, how precise it would be, or how it might be given to the government,” they wrote.” — Majority opinion, *Chatrie v. United States*

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• “often run a high risk of sweeping in innocent users–sometimes thousands of them.” — Google legal filing.

The Guardian