Earlier today, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case regarding whether law enforcement needs a warrant to access the location information of cell phone users. While the decision to turn down the case may disappoint some privacy advocates it is not surprising.
Earlier this year in Davis v. U.S., the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals determined that it was not necessary for the police to obtain a warrant before accessing cell phone location records. The defendant was convicted of armed robbery based in part by his cell phone location data. The appeals court opinion compared cell phone location data to security camera surveillance images (page 27 of the opinion) which is an interesting analogy.
In general, absent exigent circumstances (legal jargon for an emergency), a warrant should be required to access the content and meta data associated with one's digital devices. In the physical world, law enforcement is generally required to obtain a warrant to search one's home or car. A home or car may contain physical information (i.e. clothing, hard copy paper records, etc...) that may indicate an investigatory target's location history or other relevant data.
Since a warrant is generally required for physical world evidence, a warrant should generally be required for digital world evidence including location information, meta data, etc...I am hoping that the court declined this matter because it is waiting for a test case that will more easily enable them to strengthen our privacy laws.
This denial of cert demonstrates that it is imperative for the privacy community to increase its efforts to better educate the judiciary, state and federal lawmakers, and other stakeholders about digital privacy issues.
Copyright 2015 by The Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
