Cops Need Warrant for Cellphone Location Data, Judge Rules
To use your phone as a tracking device, police need a warrant, a court rules.
Sept. 12, 2008— -- The government cannot force your cellphone provider to turn over stored records about your location without proving to a judge there is probable cause you have violated the law, a federal district court ruled Wednesday.
The ruling from Judge Terrence McVerry of the Western Pennsylvania U.S. District Court deals a blow to investigators who have been getting cellphone location data on in the past simply by proving to a judge that the information would be relevant to an investigation. That's the same standard used to force a telephone company to reveal the name and address of a subscriber.
McVerry upheld a February decision written by five magistrate judges, who found that the government's request for historic cellphone location data for a person required a stricter standard. Little is known about how often investigators ask for such data, since the hearings are one-sided and the decisions are almost never published so as not to tip off the targets.
However, the ruling does not hold force across the country, and as the government's objection to the ruling noted, other judges have disagreed with the logic of protecting this data as if it were very sensitive.
The orginal decision(.pdf) found that "location information so broadly sought is extraordinarily personal and potentially sensitive; and that the ex parte nature of the proceedings, the comparatively low cost to the Government of the information requested, and the undetectable nature of a [cellular service provider]'s electronic transfer of such information, render these requests particularly vulnerable to abuse."
The government appealed, arguing the records only reveal a phone's location when it is actually used and that there's no constitutional right to have these stored records protected.
"Wireless carriers regularly generate and retain the records at issue, and because these records provide only a very general indication of a user's whereabouts at certain time in the past, the requested cell-site records do not implicate a Fourth Amendment privacy interest," the government wrote (.pdf).
