US Supreme Court rules on dragnet searches of cellphone location data / Photo: Stefani Reynolds - GETTY IMAGES/AFP/File
-
Qatar Tourism joins Pacific Asia Travel Association at London travel market
-
Qatar media bodies discuss support for humanitarian initiatives
-
Vessel operator seeks witnesses after Vancouver grounding
-
Bezos grant helps Seattle nonprofit move thousands of families toward housing
-
Shrini Srivastava joins crew of Varanasi-Delhi Vande Bharat Sleeper service
-
US stocks fall before midterm Election Day as technology shares weaken
-
Nearly Half of Australian Workers Overqualified, Survey Finds
-
BLS Polymers makes strong market debut at ₹248 per share
-
RBI eases export-declaration compliance for individual service exporters
-
Petrol and diesel prices remain broadly steady across major Indian cities
-
Reliance shares remain in focus after near-12% surge
-
Derek Tierney Outlines Ten-Year Strategy for National Digital Health System
-
Coal India prepares possible $1 billion Mahanadi Coalfields listing
US Supreme Court rules on dragnet searches of cellphone location data
The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled partially in favor of a man challenging the use of sweeping "geofence" searches of cellphone location data in his robbery conviction, sending the case back to a lower court for further consideration.
The court, in a 6-3 ruling, said that such searches -- which scan for every phone in a certain place at a specific time -- implicate the US Constitution's Fourth Amendment protections against "unreasonable searches and seizures."
However it said that a lower court would have to determine if the use of the search in the case at hand was in fact reasonable.
The case was brought by Okello Chatrie, identified as a suspect in a 2019 Virginia bank robbery after investigators obtained a warrant to search cellphone location data stored by Google.
Chatrie, who was armed with a gun and made off with $195,000, was eventually convicted and is serving a 12-year prison sentence.
His lawyer, Adam Unikowsky, argued that geofence warrants violate the Fourth Amendment by authorizing a search of every single person's account to find who was within a geofence perimeter.
Justice Elena Kagan, who was joined by the two other liberals on the court and three conservatives, wrote the majority opinion.
"An individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records about his cellphone's location, and police intrude on that constitutionally protected interest when they demand the information -- even though for only a limited time, and from a third-party tech company," Kagan wrote.
Eden Heilman, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, welcomed the ruling.
"The Court's decision confirms that law enforcement does not have a blank check to use new technology to conduct warrantless surveillance of people's movements," Heilman said. "We do not lose our right to privacy simply because we use a cellphone."
Defending the use of geofence warrants, the government argued that a smartphone user can always choose to turn off location services.
Geofence warrants were notably used to identify supporters of President Donald Trump who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in a bid to block congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden's presidential election victory.
Google no longer stores location history data on its servers and has deleted all such data. Other technology companies continue to collect location data, however.
A.Levy--CPN
