The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that police access to smartphone location data through a “geofence” search constitutes a “search” under the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. However, the justices sent the case back to lower courts to determine whether the particular search in question was reasonable and conducted with proper legal safeguards.

The case arose from a 2019 bank robbery in Midlothian, Virginia, in which Okello Chatrie was convicted after police used a warrant to obtain location data from Google. Authorities requested information about smartphones that were in proximity to the Call Federal Credit Union at the time of the crime, a process known as a geofence search. This method involves setting geographic boundaries and identifying devices that entered the area. The data includes location readings accurate to within roughly 3 meters, collected through GPS, Bluetooth beacons, cell towers, and Wi-Fi networks.

Chatrie argued that the police warrant seeking access to Google’s data on roughly 500 million customers violated the Fourth Amendment because it did not identify him as a suspect beforehand. He contended that this broad search was an unreasonable intrusion on his privacy. The Department of Justice countered, explaining that Google only identified three possible suspects after reviewing the data and that restricting such searches would hinder law enforcement investigations into serious crimes.

Writing for a 6-3 majority, Justice Elena Kagan stated that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their cell phone location records and that police demands for such data constitute a constitutional search. The ruling does not yet decide whether the search in Chatrie’s case was reasonable but requires further review by lower courts to evaluate whether the warrant was properly detailed and supported by probable cause.

At issue is whether the steps taken by police in narrowing the search were sufficiently precise and constrained. Lower courts had previously expressed concerns about the expansive nature of geofence warrants but admitted the data as evidence on the basis of police good faith in obtaining a warrant.

Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, concurred but raised reservations about the lack of magisterial supervision in defining search parameters in coordination with Google rather than by a neutral judge. “The facts of this case illustrate why the lack of magisterial oversight is dangerous,” Jackson wrote.

Justice Neil Gorsuch dissented on the expectation of privacy issue, questioning why digital tracking over a short period is treated differently than physical surveillance. Justice Samuel Alito, joined partly by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, strongly opposed the ruling. Alito argued that the additional review mandated by the Court would not change the outcome and criticized the decision as an irresponsible expansion of Fourth Amendment doctrine.

Chatrie pleaded guilty to the armed robbery and was sentenced to nearly 12 years. Police identified him as a suspect after analyzing the location data, which also included anonymous information from other individuals near a nearby church who were not implicated in the investigation.

Google ceased storing location history data on its servers in 2023, retaining such information only on individual devices. This case highlights ongoing legal debates about the balance between privacy rights and law enforcement tools in the digital age.