On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled that constitutional privacy rights apply to mobile location data and that police need a warrant to get geofence warrants to collect location data on a group of people. In an opinion by Justice Elena Kagan, the court held 6-3 that geofence warrants are Fourth Amendment searches, requiring lower courts to give them heightened scrutiny and imposing tighter constitutional standards on law enforcement.
The case, Chatrie v. United States, arose from an armed robbery of a bank union in Midlothian, Va., in 2019. Police were pursuing other leads when they got a geofence warrant from Google to identify cellphones in the area of the bank within 150 meters around the time of the crime. The warrant ultimately led to Okello Chatrie, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison. His lawyers argued on appeal that the warrant violated his privacy because it allowed authorities to gather location history from people near the bank without any evidence they were involved in the robbery.
A Landmark Decision for Digital Privacy
Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the majority that people do not forfeit expectations of privacy even when they opt into Google's location history. 'A cellphone user is not to be viewed as sharing private information with third parties — which then can be freely passed on to the government — just by doing the ordinary things cellphone users do,' Kagan wrote. She added that location data resembles other kinds of private materials such as emails, photographs or documents and should be 'shielded from the inquisitive eyes of the government.'
The court did not decide whether the specific search in Chatrie's case violated the Fourth Amendment, instead sending the case back to the lower courts for further analysis. However, the ruling established that a warrant is required and that geofence searches must be narrowly tailored and specific enough to avoid being effectively a fishing expedition.
Dissent Warns of 'Irresponsible Escapade'
Justice Samuel Alito wrote in dissent, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, describing the court's opinion as an 'irresponsible escapade' that would destabilize longstanding Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Alito argued that Chatrie had no expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turned over to Google. In his dissenting opinion, Alito wrote: 'Although today's decision will send seismic waves through our Fourth Amendment doctrine, not one iota of the majority opinion will affect the outcome of this case.'
Implications for Law Enforcement and Privacy
The ruling marks a significant victory for digital privacy advocates, who have long warned that geofence warrants allow police to conduct 'search first, develop suspicions later' investigations that sweep up data from innocent bystanders. Chatrie's attorneys had argued that the warrant was not particularized because it required Google to parse through location data for millions of people to identify a small subset near the crime scene. 'The potential for abuse is breathtaking,' they argued.
George Washington University School of Law Professor Andrew Ferguson called the decision 'a major win for Fourth Amendment privacy.' 'While police have been getting warrants in many cases, including Chatrie, it was not clear they had to under the Fourth Amendment,' Ferguson said. 'Chatrie clarifies the importance of the warrant.'
The ruling is the Supreme Court's latest effort to apply the Fourth Amendment, ratified in 1791, to technologies the nation's founders could not have envisioned. It follows the court's 2018 decision in Carpenter v. United States, which imposed limits on police obtaining cellphone data pinpointing the past locations of criminal suspects.
