Geofence warrants: What the US Supreme Court ruling means for privacy
Geofence warrants: What the US Supreme Court ruling means for privacy
Publish Date: 2026-07-01 05:36:00
Source Domain: indianexpress.com
While investigating a 2019 bank robbery, police in the US state of Virginia turned to Google location data in search of the suspect. Using a “geofence warrant”, they got the company to identify all the phones that had been near the bank around the time of the crime.
On Monday, the US Supreme Court held that obtaining this kind of sweeping location history data qualifies as a “search” under the Fourth Amendment, which means that it triggers constitutional principles against unreasonable searches and seizures.
The court, in a 6-3 verdict, also ruled that people have a “reasonable expectation of privacy” when it comes to cell phone location. It said this data cannot be treated as ordinary business records simply because a technology company holds them.
How a geofence warrant works
Ordinary investigations begin with a suspect and then seek information about that person. A geofence warrant, however, works backwards. The search starts with a place and a time and works towards identifying who was there.
Investigators had witness accounts and CCTV footage of a suspect who had appeared to be on a phone. They obtained a warrant directing Google to search its location history database for every device within a 150-metre radius of the targeted location.
Google first provided anonymised data on all devices in the area during a 30-minute window. Investigators then sought more detailed movement information for a smaller set of devices over a two-hour period before finally obtaining names and contact details for a short list of users. Google eventually narrowed the list to three users. One of them was Okello Chatrie, who was eventually sentenced to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty.
Does India have anything similar?
While there is no statutory geofence warrant regime in India, there are production powers that are used to obtain records about an already identified person.
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Section 94 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita…
