WASHINGTON, D.C. If you have a cell phone, the Supreme Court is giving you a little more privacy. The court took up whether police need a search warrant before pulling your cell phone records to track you down.
Your cell phone company knows exactly where you’ve been, because of the cell tower you’re getting service from. Until today, police could get that information from cell phone companies freely.
In a narrow win for privacy advocates, the Supreme Court ruled that authorities have to get a search warrant before seizing cell phone tracking information on a criminal suspect.
SCOTUSblog publisher Tom Goldstein said, “We now have a solid majority of five justices who recognize that these devices that we’re carrying around in our pockets and in our purses really can be a threat to our privacy.”
In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote cell phones are worse than a nosy neighbor, racking your every move and storing a record of it. In effect, he says, “Whoever the suspect turns out to be, he has effectively been tailed every moment of every day for five years.”
Former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan Barbara McQuade said, “Historical data can put someone at the scene of a crime, which can corroborate the testimony of eyewitnesses.”
It’s how Michigan police caught the suspect at the center of this case—a man wanted for stealing, of all things, cell phones.
The court stopped short of applying this ruling to other technology that we use every day, leaving the door open for authorities to use other digital info, without a warrant.
Former Zipcar Chairman & CEO Scott Griffith said, “There’s so much information, it’s time to come back and say look, those regulations were set up for a different time. It’s time to sort of put a lid on that set and come back and look at it again.”
The ruling leaves open the possibility for authorities to search tracking records without a warrant in emergencies and some other situations, setting the stage for future fights over your digital privacy.
Justices opposed to Friday’s ruling said this puts criminal investigations at risk.
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