{"id":919436,"date":"2026-07-07T21:36:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T21:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/919436\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T21:36:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T21:36:24","slug":"scotus-ruled-that-geofence-warrants-are-a-constitutional-search-what-does-that-mean-for-security-and-privacy-in-nyc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/919436\/","title":{"rendered":"SCOTUS ruled that \u2018geofence warrants\u2019 are a constitutional search. What does that mean for security and privacy in NYC?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week\u2019s 6-3 Supreme Court decision<\/a> in Chatrie v. United States ruled that a so-called \u201cgeofence warrant\u201d compelling tech companies to identify every smartphone or similar device in a specific area constituted a legal \u201csearch\u201d under the Fourth Amendment.<\/p>\n

It may not change the outcome of Okello Chatrie\u2019s conviction for robbing a Virginia credit union in 2019, but it could \u201csend seismic waves through our Fourth Amendment doctrine,\u201d according to dissenting Justice Samuel Alito.<\/p>\n

The same issue has been at the heart of data privacy debates throughout law enforcement, courts and legislative decisions in New York concerning healthcare data, license plate data, keyword searches and facial recognition.<\/p>\n

The decision hinged on whether Chatrie had the right to the reasonable expectation of privacy for his cellphone\u2019s location data, the key piece of information shared with law enforcement through geofence warrants\u2014SCOTUS determined that he did.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last week\u2019s decision raises questions about how the line between preserving public safety and protecting personal privacy is evolving as new, powerful technology is rapidly rolled out and adopted.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records about his cell phone\u2019s location, and police intrude on that constitutionally protected interest when they demand the information\u2014even though for only a limited time, and from a third-party tech company,\u201d Justice Elena Kagan said, writing the majority opinion.<\/p>\n

\"TechnologyPhoto via Envato<\/p>\n

If interpreted broadly to protect personal information or information given to a third party, the decision could have a significant impact on New York City<\/a>. For decades, the NYPD and public and private stakeholders have employed a vast network of surveillance systems to monitor the city\u2019s 8.5 million people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Researchers and privacy advocates said that in recent years, those systems have been supercharged by emerging technologies and data aggregation. Geofence warrants exploded in a matter of years, with a Google report showing that from 2018 to 2020, the number of warrants it received increased twelvefold.<\/p>\n

The corporation changed its location data privacy settings in 2023 so that it no longer cooperates with geofence warrants, but Deputy Director of Tech Law & Policy at NYU Law School\u2019s Policing Project, Clare Garvie, told amNewYork that Google is far from the only way police can track indiscriminate location data.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aWe can imagine a world where this is extended to, let\u2019s say, DraftKings and FanDuel that do collect geolocation information, and tens of millions of people in the United States have downloaded those apps,\u201d Garvie said. \u201cSo there isn\u2019t really a practical limitation to the number of pots of data that law enforcement in theory would have access to, given the nature of how these apps work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Are we near \u2018tireless and absolute surveillance\u2019 with geofence warrants?<\/p>\n

Garvie told amNewYork that not only are people being tracked in more ways than ever before, but that the data gathered through technology and surveillance can be combined and analyzed in ways that, in the court\u2019s words, amount to \u201ctireless and absolute surveillance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aOur information is no longer dispersed across wide data sets, but it is aggregated, and it is no longer just one piece in a massive database, Garvie said. \u201cIt can be pulled out, paired with other information about us to generate comprehensive pictures about who we are, what we believe, who our associations are, et cetera.\u201d<\/p>\n

One example she\u2019s keeping an eye on is Automated License Plate Trackers (ALPTs). Garvie said that technology has enabled trackers to read more than just an individual\u2019s license plate number, which is already registered with the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, some ALPTs are also tracking signals within vehicles, like Bluetooth, RFID, and Wi-Fi signatures, potentially enabling those trackers to locate vehicle operators and riders beyond their cars.\n<\/p>\n

New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), the Policing Project at New York University School of Law, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, and Freshfields LLP filed in June, a class action lawsuit against Westchester County Police Department for its use of ALPTs. <\/p>\n

The lawsuit alleged that WCPD\u2019s ALPTs violated drivers\u2019 Fourth Amendment rights when it captured information beyond license plate and location point data, to include things like vehicle make, model, color and details like bumper stickers. The complaint notes that the system even has the ability to photograph drivers and their passengers, alleging that WCPD essentially created a \u201cdigital dossier\u201d on drivers that has been maintained for years.<\/p>\n

SCOTUS\u2019s decision in was a departure from previous rulings on the issue of privacy expectations in that it recognized that individuals don\u2019t have the same ability they once did to opt out of mass data collection if they wish to participate in modern society. In prior decisions, the court had ruled that the Fourth Amendment right to privacy did not apply to information voluntarily shared with a third-party.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But more recent decisions in 2018 and now in 2026, the court\u2019s view evolved to recognize the growing role of technology and information sharing in everyday life.\n<\/p>\n

A group of patients at NYU Langone Hospitals filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice and the hospital over a civil subpoena from a Texas federal court which ordered the hospital to turn over years of data and records about patients receiving gender-affirming care.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the lawsuit alleged that the subpoena violated the Fourth Amendment rights of patients by demanding data and health information to which plaintiffs believe they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, regardless of whether it was shared with a third party.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis highly intimate and sensitive medical information is paradigmatically the sort of private information the Fourth Amendment is meant to protect from unwarranted government encroachment,\u201d the complaint said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Protestors march outside NYU Langone Hospital on Trans Day of Visibility. Photo: Dean Moses<\/p>\n

But researchers and advocates told amNewYork that NYC didn\u2019t need to wait for concerns about privacy, technology and surveillance to be decided in the courts. They urged the public to speak up and lawmakers to enact legislation protecting personal privacy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Senior Privacy and Tech Strategist for NYCLU, Daniel Schwarz told amNewYork that NYCLU has made important strides in districts in New York. He said so far, seven districts have canceled their contracts with license plate reader technology companies, but that NYC didn\u2019t have to be left behind.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aThe legal landscape is severely lagging behind the development of technologies and how we\u2019re seeing surveillance technologies being used by the government, by private entities and how Fourth Amendment protections have been for a long time undermined,\u201d Schwarz said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The City Council passed the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act<\/a> in June 2020, and the NYPD was required to publicly reveal some details and uses of surveillance technology deployed by the department.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those disclosures<\/a> showed that the NYPD uses around 40 different types of technology<\/a> to monitor the public and track the data it deems necessary to enforce public safety.\u00a0Some of these include CCTV, facial recognition technology, iris recognition technology, license plate readers, mobile X-ray technology, data analysis tools, and\u00a0counterterrorism software<\/a> to centralize NYPD data.<\/p>\n

Still, advocates and lawmakers have found transparency to be lacking. Just last year, the City Council expanded the NYPD\u2019s reporting requirements under the act to include reports on the newly acquired technology and retiring technology, the use of facial recognition, outside entities that receive NYPD surveillance data, and the technologies\u2019 impact on protected communities.<\/p>\n

Amnesty International launched in 2021 a crowdsourcing effort called Decode Surveillance NYC, which found and categorized more than 25,000 CCTV cameras across the city in an effort to highlight New Yorkers\u2019 exposure to technology like facial recognition. The human rights watchdog said that the NYPD used facial recognition in more than 20,000 cases between 2016 and 2019.<\/p>\n

\"DronesDrones are one of around 40 different technologies identified by NYPD for use in surveillance and law enforcement through the POST Act. Photo: REUTERS\/Cheney Orr<\/p>\n

Lawmakers in Albany introduced bills in 2025-2026 legislative session intended to limit access to certain types of data. One bill would have banned geofencing warrants and reverse keyword search warrants for individuals that aren\u2019t suspected of a crime, but the legislation never made it out of committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another bill suffered a similar fate. The Biometric Identifier Privacy Act would require private entities collecting biometric data to define the time limits and terms of destruction of biometric information following its use.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Schwarz said that despite the proliferation of privacy-invasive technology and opaque surveillance methods, NYCLU and privacy advocates are rallying to push for more protections that honor Fourth Amendment rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese technologies are deployed to supposedly serve the local communities, and so local community members can speak out, can testify, can push back against these contracts, and have successfully done so,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aI think we\u2019re seeing a lot of attention to this, and people are fed up having these technologies being deployed without their awareness or consent,\u201d he finished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week\u2019s 6-3 Supreme Court decision in Chatrie v. United States ruled that a so-called \u201cgeofence warrant\u201d compelling…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":919437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,371179,364,22504,53478,57784,71560,371180,22508,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,192413,5257,371181,105103,278,191982,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-919436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-cellphone-location-data","tag-constitutional-law","tag-data-privacy","tag-digital-surveillance","tag-facial-recognition","tag-fourth-amendment","tag-geofence-warrants","tag-license-plate-readers","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyclu","tag-nypd","tag-policing-project","tag-privacy-rights","tag-supreme-court","tag-surveillance-technology","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/919437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}