Supreme Court rules cellphone location data is protected by Fourth Amendment
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that police access to cellphone location data held by tech companies constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment, even when obtained through a warrant.
In a 6-3 decision on June 29, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that whenever police obtain an individual's cellphone location data—even from a third-party tech company—it constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling, in Chatrie v. United States, marks a significant limit on law enforcement's ability to use location tracking tools to investigate crime.
The case centered on a practice known as a "geofence search," in which police draw virtual fences around areas of interest and require tech companies like Google to identify every cellphone in that area using cell location history. According to the reporting, officers obtain a warrant that initiates a multistep process between law enforcement and tech company employees, which then narrows down and identifies suspects.
The Fourth Amendment standard
The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable government searches and seizures, and requires search warrants based on probable cause that specifically describe the particular person or thing to be searched. A geofence warrant—which identifies every phone in an area regardless of ownership—does not align well with this requirement.
The Supreme Court found the government's arguments unconvincing. Law enforcement had argued both that Chatrie had tacitly agreed to Google collecting the information and that he had no reasonable expectation of privacy in third-party records. The Court disagreed on both fronts.
How the case unfolded
The Chatrie case arose from the hunt for a suspect in an armed bank robbery in Midlothian, Virginia, in May 2019. Detective Joshua Hylton was granted a geofence warrant that compelled Google to search its database and identify every cellphone in a 17½-acre area around the bank—including private residences and a church—for a two-hour window. Working closely with Google, police narrowed in on Okello Chatrie as the suspect.
Chatrie's trial court denied his motion to suppress the geofence-derived evidence. He then appealed, ultimately reaching the Supreme Court.
What comes next
The Supreme Court has remanded the case back to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to determine whether the specific geofence warrant used, including each part of its three-step search process, met the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirements.
The broader privacy implications
Google tracks the vast majority of cellphones globally, collecting location, usage, and device data through installed software and apps. According to the reporting, this tracking occurs through autonomous processes that users cannot see or stop, even when location history is turned off. Tech companies retain this data for years, creating what amounts to a permanent digital record of individuals' movements.
The Supreme Court disagreed that people have ceded privacy rights simply by using Google's services or by virtue of third-party data storage.
The ruling affects the widespread use of geofence warrants, a tool that has become routine in law enforcement investigations across the United States. Police have frequently used such warrants to cast wide nets around crime scenes, requiring tech companies to hand over location data for everyone in an area during a given timeframe—not just suspects.