Overview
- The Court held in a 6-3 decision that police requests for cellphone location data tied to a geographic area—called geofence or geolocation orders—constitute a Fourth Amendment search.
- The majority opinion, written by Justice Elena Kagan, said law enforcement must obtain judicial authorization before demanding location-data sweeps from tech companies.
- The ruling remanded the 2019 case of Okello Chatrie to lower courts so judges can determine whether the specific warrant used to get Google data was overly broad and therefore unconstitutional.
- Civil rights groups praised the decision for curbing what they called indiscriminate mass surveillance, while the Department of Justice and dissenting justices warned the change will affect a widely used investigative tool.
- The practical effect will be that companies like Google must receive narrower, judge-approved requests for location records and lower courts will now set rules on how particular geofence warrants must be.