US Supreme Court orders lower court to reconsider ’geofence’ warrant case

The US Supreme Court has ruled that geofence warrants, which allow law enforcement to collect sweeping smartphone location data, require privacy protections under the Fourth Amendment. Justice Elena Kagan authored the majority opinion, determining that these sprawling warrants can act as an unconstitutional dragnet. Consequently, the high court has ordered a lower court to reconsider a specific geofence warrant case to ensure that constitutional privacy rights are upheld during the collection of digital location evidence.