WASHINGTON—Police officers for the first time could be required to obtain warrants to get data on the past locations of criminal suspects based on cellphone use under a major case on privacy rights in the digital age taken up by the Supreme Court on Monday.
The justices agreed to hear an appeal by a man convicted in a series of armed robberies in Ohio and Michigan with the help of past cellphone location data who contends that without a warrant from a court such data amounts to an unreasonable search and seizure under the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.
Cellphone location records are becoming increasingly important to police in criminal investigations, with authorities routinely requesting and receiving this information from wireless providers.
Police helped establish that the man at the center of the case, Timothy Carpenter, was near the scene of the robberies at Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores by securing past “cell site location information” from his cellphone carrier that tracked which local cellphone towers relayed his calls.
The case reaches the high court amid growing scrutiny of the surveillance practices of law enforcement and intelligence agencies amid concern among lawmakers across the political spectrum about civil liberties and police evading warrant requirements.
The legal fight has raised questions about how much companies protect the privacy rights of their customers. The big four wireless carriers, Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T Inc., T-Mobile US Inc. and Sprint Corp., receive tens of thousands of requests a year from law enforcement for what is known as “cell site location information,” or CSLI. The requests are routinely granted.
The Supreme Court has twice in recent years ruled on major cases concerning how criminal law applies to new technology, on each occasion ruling against law enforcement. In 2012, the court held that a warrant is required to place a GPS tracking device on a vehicle. Two years later, the court said police need a warrant to search a cellphone that is seized during an arrest.
