Just as carrying a cellphone is part of modern life, so too is allowing a third party to monitor your activities, and that does not diminish a person’s right to privacy, the majority ruled. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that even “short-term monitoring” of where a person is can reveal “a vast amount of information about that person.” [his] family, political, professional, religious, and sexual relationships”—especially if she was seen visiting a sensitive location such as a clinic, lawyer’s office, or strip club.
“An individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records regarding his or her cell phone location, and police interfere with that constitutionally protected interest when they seek that information – even if only for a limited time, and from a third-party technology company,” Kagan wrote.
Privacy advocates applauded the decision, even though it “stopped short of striking down these warrants as inherently unconstitutional,” Andrew Crocker, surveillance litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said in a statement to Ars.
“We applaud the court’s decision,” Crocker said. “The Court confirmed that you have an expectation of privacy in location data that reveals your activities in the physical world, and even short-term monitoring of these activities is a search subject to the Fourth Amendment.”
Tech companies also moved to support the decision. Matt Schruers is the CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a trade association that counts Google and Apple among its members. In a statement, he celebrated the decision making clear that “the Fourth Amendment fully protects people’s privacy rights from government intrusion.”
“We are encouraged to see that the Court recognizes that privacy interests remain regardless of the technology involved, and that law enforcement should seek judicial authorization to obtain Americans’ geolocation information,” Schruers said.
Disagreements argued on an app-by-app basis
The majority of judges agreed that a common standard applying to all Fourth Amendment location histories was necessary to avoid future court battles that could potentially draw different lines between different apps and phone features.
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