Supreme Court Recognizes Expectation of Privacy Regarding Cellphone Location Data

On Friday, June 22, 2018, in a 5-4 split, the Supreme Court in Carpenter v. United Statesheld that the government usually needs a warrant to access an individual’s historical cellphone location data held by third-party carriers. The court rejected the government’s argument that an individual does not have a legitimate expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment concerning the location data that third-party carriers collect and keep.  This data, essentially logs of the location of cellphone towers used to route calls to and… Continue Reading