Geofence Warrants

In Chatrie v. United States (2026), the Supreme Court held that police conduct a Fourth Amendment search when they obtain a person’s cell‑phone Location History data from Google through a geofence warrant. The Court ruled that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their historical location records, even when those records are held by a third‑party company. As a result, geofence warrants now require probable cause, particularity, and narrow tailoring at every stage of the data‑collection process. The Court vacated the lower court’s ruling and remanded the case to determine whether the warrant satisfied these constitutional requirements.

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