#supreme-court

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement's use of a geofence warrant to obtain cellphone location data from Google constitutes a Fourth Amendment search, requiring probable cause and a warrant. The decision came in a case involving a 2019 bank robbery in Virginia. This landmark ruling strengthens digital privacy protections by requiring law enforcement to meet constitutional standards before accessing bulk location data. It sets a precedent for how courts handle reverse location warrants and limits warrantless surveillance of innocent bystanders. The geofence warrant instructed Google to provide location data for devices within 150 meters of a bank during a 30-minute window before and after the robbery. The Court found that accessing this aggregated location history invaded a reasonable expectation of privacy, rejecting arguments that data in public places is unprotected.