The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday limited how law enforcement can use "geofence" warrants, ruling that people have "a reasonable expectation of privacy" in their cell-phone location data, according to TechCrunch.
Geofence warrants let police ask technology companies to hand over data identifying the devices that were in a particular geographic area at a particular time. Because that data can sweep up the phones of anyone nearby, not just suspects, the practice has long alarmed civil liberties groups.
TechCrunch, in reporting by Zack Whittaker and Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, described the decision as a "major privacy win." The outlet notes that privacy advocates had argued the warrants were unconstitutional and had pushed for an outright ban on them.
The court stopped short of that. Rather than banning geofence warrants entirely, it limited their use, applying constitutional privacy protections to the cell-phone location data they rely on. That means advocates won the principle they argued for, that such location data deserves privacy protection, even if they did not get the total prohibition they sought.
The ruling, reported by TechCrunch and aggregated by Techmeme, centers on the idea that handing over location records tied to a device touches a "reasonable expectation of privacy," a legal standard that shapes when the government needs to clear a higher bar before obtaining personal data.
Why it matters: the decision sets a national limit on a fast-growing police surveillance tool, strengthening privacy protections for the location trails that nearly everyone's smartphone constantly generates.