WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) -— The US Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday about law enforcement’s use of “geofence warrants” — the collection of smartphone location data about everyone who was near a particular place at a specific time.

The justices are considering whether the use of such warrants constitutes an unconstitutional violation of privacy.

The case was brought by Okello Chatrie, who was identified as a suspect in a 2019 Virginia bank robbery after a search of the Google location history on his phone.

Chatrie, who was armed with a gun and holding a cellphone and made off with US$195,000, was eventually convicted and is serving a 12-year prison sentence.

Adam Unikowsky, who is representing Chatrie, told the justices that geofence warrants violate the US Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

“The warrant authorised the Government to direct Google to search every single person’s account to find those people who were within the geofence,” Unikowsky said.

The Government is defending the use of geofence warrants and arguing that a smartphone user can always choose to turn off location services.

“I take the point that you can flip it off,” Unikowsky said. “I just don’t agree that one should have to flip off one’s location history, as well as other cloud services, to avoid Government surveillance.”

Deputy Solicitor General Eric Feigin, representing the Justice Department, told the court that banning the use of geofence warrants “would impede the investigation of kidnappings, robberies, shootings and other crimes.

“[The] petitioner here is asking for an unprecedented transformation of the Fourth Amendment into an impregnable fortress around records of his public movements that he affirmatively consented to allow
Google to create, maintain and use,” Feigin said.

Geofence warrants were notably used to identify supporters of President Donald Trump who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in a bid to block congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.

Google no longer stores location history data on its servers and deleted all such data as of last year. Other technology companies continue to collect location data, however.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule in the case in June or early July.