So long as the warrant satisfies the Fourth Amendment Probable Cause and Particularity Requirements.
Chatrie v. U.S.
U.S. Supreme Court
June 29, 2026
Why is this case important?
What is a geofence warrant? Geofences warrants provide law enforcement location data from technology companies by drawing a virtual perimeter around a specific geographic area.
Note: The U.S. Supreme Court required seventy-two pages to write the decision in Chatrie. This article has redacted much of what the court wrote and is focused on the salient facts and legal analyses for law enforcement.
Background
In recent years, law enforcement officers have employed so-called geofence warrants to obtain information that technology companies collect about their users’ cell-phone locations. Suppose that investigators know a crime was committed at a particular place and time, but do not have a suspect. They may draw a “geofence”—a virtual perimeter—around the crime scene and get a warrant compelling a company to hand over data about the cell phones located in that area near the time of the crime. Following a process specified in the warrant, the company will turn over the cell-phone data and eventually identify by name one or more of the users thus disclosed.
Geofence Warrant Solved and Armed Bank Robbery
The geofence warrant at issue here was directed to Google, and used to solve a bank robbery. Hundreds of millions of Google users have activated a service called Location History, which records the location of a user’s cell phone every two minutes or so. Through a geofence warrant, police officers required Google to turn over Location History data revealing cell phones within the vicinity of a bank at around the time it was robbed. At the end of the multi-step process described in the warrant, Google gave the police three names. The Federal Government soon charged one of the individuals thus identified, petitioner Okello Mr. Chatrie, with committing the crime.
Court Decides that a Geofence Warrant is a Search
Today, we consider how the Fourth Amendment applies to that use of a geofence warrant. Answering that question in full would mean deciding whether the police conducted a Fourth Amendment “search” when they acquired the cellphone data leading to Mr. Chatrie’s arrest and, if so, whether that search was reasonable given the features of the warrant they employed. We decide the first part of that inquiry today, concluding that the police conducted a search when they gained access to Location History data. An individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records about his cell phone’s location, and police intrude on that constitutionally protected interest when they demand the information—even though for only a limited time, and from a third-party tech company. We leave to the Court of Appeals the further question whether, given the warrant issued, the search here was reasonable, meaning that each of its steps was properly described with particularity and found to be supported by probable cause.
Court Applies Visitors from Mars Analysis
Modern cell phones, we observed a dozen years ago, are “such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy.” Riley v. California, 573 U. S. 373, 385 (2014). Since then, the percentage of Americans who own smartphones has only increased. Today, more than nine in ten Americans own a smartphone. That means they are likely addicted to apps and other services, many of which collect and store “detailed information about all aspects of a person’s life.” Riley, 573 U. S., at 396.
What is an App?
Among that information is a single fact most pertinent here: where the user’s cell phone is located at a given time. Apps of many kinds rely on that datum. Your maps app wants to help you navigate from Point A (where you are) to Point B (where you are going). Ride-sharing apps of course track your location when you are using them, and often do so even when you are not. Weather apps want to tell you about local conditions. Fast-food apps want to identify the closest burger and pizza joints. Fitness apps want to track your running routes. And so on.
Location History
This case concerns a form of cell-phone location data called “Location History,” which Google apps collect and store. Location History is what it sounds like—a timestamped record of every place a cell phone has been. Every two minutes or so, Location History draws from an array of sources to log a cell phone’s location. Those sources include nearby Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth beacons, and cell sites, as well as GPS and IP address information. When combined, the signals tracked can determine a cell phone’s location within 20 meters. They can also ascertain a phone’s elevation, and thus reveal which floor within a building the phone is on. By all accounts, those features make Location History “the most sweeping, granular, and comprehensive tool” existing today for collecting and storing location data. 590 F. Supp. 3d 901, 907 (ED Va. 2022).
Google is ALWAYS Tracking
Google repeatedly prompts users to enable Location History, and over 500 million users worldwide have done so. The first prompt comes when a user initially establishes a Google account. If that spur is ignored, another will arrive when a user sets up a Google app—like Google Assistant, Google Maps, or Google Photos—on his phone or other device. Android (though not iPhone) users are specifically warned that their devices will not “work correctly” unless they turn on Location History. 2 App. 140–141. And once a user does so, the service runs—and runs constantly—in the background. Regardless whether the user has a Google app open—or whether he is using his phone at all—Location History remains active. Indeed, it continues to work even if the user deletes the app through which he first turned it on. Location History stops only if a user affirmatively stops it. Sans that intervention, it tracks and tracks and tracks a user’s cell phone (and other devices).
What is Data Cloud Storage?
Google stores all Location History data in the cloud, rather than on a user’s device—though that choice makes no real difference to the user. “Cloud computing” refers to “the capacity of Internet-connected devices to display data stored on remote servers rather than on the device itself.” Riley, 573 U. S., at 397. Because it exists, Google can store information on its own servers, while the user can view it as if stored on his cell phone. Such remote storage, we have explained, is common: “Cell phone users often may not know whether particular information is stored on the device or in the cloud, and it generally makes little difference.” Ibid. So, for example, Google usually stores users’ emails, documents, and photographs on company servers instead of on individual devices. And the same is true of the information generated by Location History, which is stored in a single central repository on Google’s servers. That data exists someplace remote, but a user sees it—and the content Google creates from it—in the palm of his hand. The user thus can access a “Timeline” showing where he has traveled when; receive real-time updates about his daily commute; and take advantage of maps and recommendations based on his usual movements.
Thousands of Geofence Warrants are Issued Every Year
In the last decade, Google’s Location History data has also served another function, though this one unknown to most users: That data, as obtained through a geofence warrant, can enable law enforcement officers to solve hard-to-solve crimes. Such a warrant, as earlier described, seeks information about the cell phones located in the vicinity of a crime scene at around the time the crime was committed. The goal, put simply, is to find out who was there and so who might have done it. (There are usually better ways to investigate an already-known suspect—like seeking only his location data.) And the mechanism is to use the offender’s cell phone as an identifying device. The warrant specifies a timeframe and maps an area (with the geofence as its perimeter), and demands information about the cell phones—and their users—present within it. There is some uncertainty about how often the technique in fact works. But its use among law enforcement officers has flourished. Google received its first geofence warrant in 2016. See 590 F. Supp. 3d, at 914. Two years later, it received 982; and two years after that, more than 11,000.
Geofence Warrants – Three Step Process
As those demands began to proliferate, Google worked with law enforcement officials to develop a three-step protocol to govern geofence warrants. At the first step, Google produces anonymized (i.e., no names attached) location data for all cell phones (or other devices) within the geofence—typically, a circle with a designated radius surrounding a latitude/longitude coordinate—during a specified timeframe. That data generally includes each phone’s latitude/longitude coordinate and corresponding timestamp; an estimate of that information’s accuracy; and a description of the information’s source (e.g., a Wi-Fi network, a cell site, or some other). The data at this stage shows each user’s location, every two minutes or so, within the geofence. At the second step of the process, officials review the data produced and typically ask Google to provide additional information for a subset of still-anonymized users. That new data is usually for a longer timeframe than first specified; it also shows the user’s location outside, as well as inside, the geofence. Finally, at the third step, officials demand the identities of a further subset of users— their names, email addresses, and phone numbers. Thus, the geofence warrant is designed to eventually produce a select number of identified users suspected of committing the crime under investigation.
Mr. Chatrie’s Armed Robbery
On May 20, 2019, at about 4:50 p.m., a man robbed a credit union in North Chesterfield, Virginia. The robber presented a teller with a handwritten note demanding $100,000, threatening to hurt her and her family if she did not comply, and warning her that he had “boys on the lookout out side.” 590 F. Supp. 3d, at 905–906. When the teller replied that she did not have access to that amount of money, the robber brandished a firearm. He ordered everyone in the bank to the ground, and forced the bank’s manager to open a safe and put $195,000 into a bag. The robber then left on foot with the money.
On May 20, 2019 Mr. Chatrie committed an armed robbery at the Call Federal Credit Union, 9700 Midlothian Turnpike in North Chesterfield, Virginia at 4:50pm but at that time his identity was unknown. Fortunately Google knew who committed the armed robbery, but will geofence warrants remain constitutional?
Armed Robber was Unidentified
Local police officers responded to the scene and began an investigation. They learned, from witness interviews and surveillance-camera footage, that the robber had approached the credit union from a corner of an adjacent church, while appearing to talk on a cell phone. But they could not find out anything more, and the robber remained at large.
Mr. Chatrie Appeared to Have Been Using his Phone During the Robbery
On June 14, the police officers thus applied to a Virginia magistrate for a geofence warrant directed to Google. The application described the cell-phone location data Google collects, and explained how that data could lead to identifying the robber, his possible accomplices, or additional witnesses to the crime. Success was particularly likely here, the application stated, because the robber appeared to be using his phone when he entered the credit union, and may even have been speaking with an accomplice. The officers’ proposed geofence was a circle with a radius of 150 meters surrounding the credit union.
Mr. Chatrie’s Warrant Process
The warrant application went on to describe the three-step process that the police would follow to obtain the location information sought. At step one, Google would produce anonymized location data for all cell phones within the geofence in the hour between 4:20 and 5:20 p.m. (30 minutes before to 30 minutes after the robbery). At step two, police officers would “attempt to narrow down the list [of devices] by reviewing the time stamped location coordinates for each [device] and comparing that against the known time and location information that is specific to this crime.” For that narrowed list, Google would provide additional (but still anonymized) data—cell-phone locations both inside and outside the geofence during a two-hour period (so now from 3:50 to 5:50 p.m.). Finally, at step three, police would again “attempt to narrow down the list by comparing this additional information regarding travel and time against the known time and location information that is specific to this crime.” Id., at 137. And Google would then turn over identifying information for each user on the final list, including his name and phone number.
Three Step Geofence Process Applied
The magistrate issued the warrant, and officers executed it in the manner prescribed. At the first stage of the process, Google gave up anonymized data for 19 users found within the geofence during the hour within which the robbery occurred. At the second stage, the officers winnowed the list to nine users. And Google produced anonymized data showing their movements both inside and outside the geofence for the extended two-hour period. At the third and last step, the police again narrowed the list, this time to three users. Google responded with their identifying information. One of the three was Mr. Chatrie. The location data showed that he entered the geofenced area about ten minutes before the robbery, and headed toward a residential area of town immediately after leaving the bank.
Mr. Chatrie is Indicted
Following further police work, a federal grand jury charged Mr. Chatrie with robbery and related firearms offenses. He moved to suppress the information that the police had obtained from Google. According to Mr. Chatrie, the officers had acquired that data through a Fourth Amendment search, and the warrant ostensibly authorizing that search was invalid.
Objectively Unreasonable
The District Court mainly agreed with Mr. Chatrie’s Fourth Amendment analysis, but still denied the motion to exclude the Location History evidence. Even though “this particular geofence warrant plainly violates the rights enshrined in [the Fourth] Amendment,” the court stated, the officers’ reliance on it was not “objectively unreasonable.” 590 F. Supp. 3d, at 905, 938. And because that was so, the court concluded, the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule permitted admission of the location data. See id., at 937– 938; United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, 922–923 (1984) (establishing good-faith exception).
Did Mr. Chatrie have an Expectation of Privacy During his Robbery?
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals of the Fourth Circuit affirmed, but on different reasoning. The majority held that the government did not conduct a search and therefore did not need a warrant. That was so, the majority reasoned, because Mr. Chatrie “did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in two hours’ worth of Location History data voluntarily exposed to Google.” 107 F. 4th 319, 325 (2024). Judge Wynn dissented, arguing that “the police intrusion into Mr. Chatrie’s Location History data” was “a search that triggered the Fourth Amendment’s protections,” and that the warrant issued was “so lacking in particularity and probable cause that it was invalid.” Id., at 339, 362, and n. 12.
En Banc Court Issued One Sentence
After granting rehearing en banc, the Fourth Circuit affirmed in a one-sentence per curiam. See 136 F. 4th 100, 101 (2025) (“The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED”). In multiple accompanying writings, the court divided evenly (7 to 7) on whether a Fourth Amendment search had occurred. Of the seven judges who thought it had, most believed the geofence warrant defective. But most also thought the exclusionary rule’s good-faith exception applied, so ruled against Mr. Chatrie anyway.
The U.S. Supreme Answers Only Half the Case
We granted certiorari solely on the question whether the police violated the Fourth Amendment in obtaining Mr. Chatrie’s location data, thus declining to consider the exclusionary rule issue. See 607 U. S. 1148 (2026). The disputed Fourth Amendment question divides into two parts. First, did law enforcement officials conduct a search under the Fourth Amendment when they acquired Mr. Chatrie’s location data from Google? We hold that they did because an individual has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his cell- phone location data. Second, did the multi-step geofence warrant issued here make that search reasonable? We leave that question—which requires deciding whether the warrant satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause and particularity requirements at each stage of the search process—to the Court of Appeals to address in the first instance.
Fourth Amendment
The Fourth Amendment protects “[T]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The “basic purpose” of that Amendment, our precedents say, is “to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions by governmental officials.” Carpenter v. United States, 585 U. S. 296, 303 (2018) (quoting Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of San Francisco, 387 U. S. 523, 528 (1967)).
Established Case Law – Searches
That purpose is central to decisions about whether a Fourth Amendment “search” has occurred. Our early search doctrine focused on whether law enforcement officials “obtain[ed] information by physically intruding”—that is, trespassing—on private property. United States v. Jones, 565 U. S. 400, 406–407, n. 3 (2012); see id., at 404– 405. But the Court in Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 351 (1967), recognized that “the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places.” And so we have long held that “property rights are not the sole measure” of a constitutional violation; the Fourth Amendment “protect[s] certain expectations of privacy as well.” Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U. S. 56, 64 (1992); Carpenter, 585 U. S., at 304. “When an individual seeks to preserve something as private and his expectation of privacy is one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable,” then governmental “intrusion into that private sphere generally qualifies as a search.” Ibid.
Established Case Law – Expectation of Privacy
Whether an expectation of privacy counts as legitimate is less the result of any fixed set of rules than of “guideposts” stretching back to the Fourth Amendment’s beginnings. Id., at 305. From the founding onward, we have explained, the Fourth Amendment has sought to secure the “privacies of life” against the exercise of “arbitrary power.” Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 630 (1886); see Carpenter, 585 U. S., at 305. So too we have recognized, and repeatedly, that the Amendment was designed “to place obstacles in the way of a too permeating police surveillance.” United States v. Di Re, 332 U. S. 581, 595 (1948); Carpenter, 585 U. S., at 305. Whatever the form of an attempted incursion, the Fourth Amendment protects Americans’ long-held conviction that no government official should have free access to the most closely kept aspects of their lives.
In recent decades, this Court has often confronted the challenge of adhering to those principles in the face of new technologies. “[I]nnovations in surveillance tools” have “enhanced the Government’s capacity to encroach upon areas normally guarded from inquisitive eyes.” Ibid. The Court, in response, has sought to “assure preservation of that degree of privacy against government that existed when the Fourth Amendment was adopted.” Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27, 34 (2001). So in one decision, we rejected a “mechanical interpretation” of the Fourth Amendment to hold that the use of a thermal imager to detect heat coming from a person’s home was a search in the constitutional sense. Id., at 35. And in another, we held that the search of a cell phone incident to arrest could not proceed without a warrant (even though the search of a handbag could) because of the phone’s “vast quantities of personal information.” Riley, 573 U. S., at 386. Most recently, in Carpenter v. United States, this Court held that accessing a form of cell-phone location information other than Location History is a Fourth Amendment search given individuals’ reasonable expectations of privacy.
A cell-phone user is not to be viewed as sharing private information with third parties—which then can be freely passed on to the government.
And there is yet a deeper problem: The Government’s app-by-app, feature-by-feature method of granting Fourth Amendment protection misapprehends the very nature of modern cell-phone use. Pretty much everything a person does on a smartphone requires some kind of opt-in—an “affirmative act” beyond “powering up” to utilize a given app or service. Carpenter, 585 U. S., at 315. Consider sending an email on Gmail, uploading a photo to Google Photos, or adding a calendar entry to Google Calendar. None happens solely by dint of the phone’s operation; each requires, as Location History does, an “optional add-on.” And each activity, like using Location History, results in sharing information with a third-party tech company—turning over private materials to live on that company’s servers. The Government wishes to disconnect all those uses from the mere act of carrying a turned-on cell phone (the thing that generates Cell Site Location Information [CSLI]), with only the latter receiving assured Fourth Amendment protection. But that is to imagine that all of us are living in dumb flip-phone days. The point of carrying smartphones is to use what is on them—as Carpenter said, to use the apps and “services they provide.” 585 U. S., at 315. That is what has become a “pervasive and insistent”—even “indispensable”—“part of daily life.” Ibid.; Riley, 573 U. S., at 385. And so that is what Carpenter insulated from the third-party doctrine. A cell-phone user is not to be viewed as sharing private information with third parties—which then can be freely passed on to the government—just by doing the ordinary things cell-phone users do.
[W]e hold that police officers invade a cell-phone user’s reasonable expectation of privacy when they access his Location History.
For all those reasons, we hold that police officers invade a cell-phone user’s reasonable expectation of privacy when they access his Location History. It does not matter if the time period scrutinized was only two hours. Nor does it matter that the materials obtained were handed over by a third-party tech company. When the government “accesses historical cell phone” location information—Location History as much as CSLI—it “conducts a search under the Fourth Amendment.” Carpenter, 585 U. S., at 300.
U.S. Citizens Have the Right to be Left Alone
In his famed and vindicated dissent, Justice Brandeis explained why a wiretap was a search, subject to Fourth Amendment requirements. See Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 471 (1928). Those who drafted the Amendment could not have imagined such a technology. But they understood, Justice Brandeis wrote, a matter of more transcendent importance: that Americans had “as against the Government, the right to be let alone” and that the Fourth Amendment must protect against “every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed.” Id., at 478.
Law Enforcement Should Not Have Unrestricted Access to a Wireless Carries Database of Physical Location Information.
Far more recently, this Court in Carpenter invoked Justice Brandeis’s opinion in explaining why law enforcement officials could not have “unrestricted access to a wireless carrier’s database of physical location information.” 585 U. S., at 320. Said Carpenter: “[T]he Court is obligated—as ‘[s]ubtler and more far-reaching means of invading privacy have become available to the Government’—to ensure that the ‘progress of science’ does not erode Fourth Amendment protections.” Ibid. (quoting 277 U. S., at 473–474 (dissenting opinion)). For new technological tools, the Court continued, may “risk Government encroachment of the sort the Framers, after consulting the lessons of history, drafted the Fourth Amendment to prevent.” 585 U. S., at 320.
The Fourth Amendment must, as ever, protect against unjustified governmental intrusion on the privacy of the individual.
Today’s decision follows from the same judicial obligation, to guard against the same risk of undue encroachment. The Fourth Amendment applies, too, when officials tap into Google’s ‘database of physical location information’. That database is new, but the principle covering it is not: That principle is instead the one our history has given. The Fourth Amendment must, as ever, protect against unjustified governmental intrusion on the privacy of the individual.
Conclusion and Holding
For the reasons stated, we vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Information for this article was obtained from Chatrie v. U.S., No. 25-112 and online news articles.
Chatrie v. U.S., No. 25-112 was issued by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 29, 2026 and is binding throughout the United States.
Lessons Learned
Cell Phone Searches – On June 25, 2014 the U.S. Supreme Court issued .” Riley v. California, 573 U. S. 373, 385 (2014). In that case the court acknowledged “Cell phones have become important tools in facilitating coordination and communication among members of criminal enterprises, and can provide valuable incriminating information about dangerous criminals. Privacy comes at a cost.” But ultimately held “Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple—get a warrant.”.
Cell Site Location Information – Four years later the U.S. Supreme Court issued Carpenter v. United States, 585 U. S. 296 (2018) “We decline to grant the state unrestricted access to a wireless carrier’s database of physical location information. In light of the deeply revealing nature of CSLI, its depth, breadth, and comprehensive reach, and the inescapable and automatic nature of its collection, the fact that such information is gathered by a third party does not make it any less deserving of Fourth Amendment protection. The Government’s acquisition of the cell-site records here was a search under that Amendment.”
Geofence – In this Chatrie case, the U.S. Supreme applied the doctrines in both Riley and Carpenter to its analysis and holding. Specific to this and future geofence warrants the court held “[W]e hold that police officers invade a cell-phone user’s reasonable expectation of privacy when they access his Location History. It does not matter if the time period scrutinized was only two hours. Nor does it matter that the materials obtained were handed over by a third-party tech company. When the government “accesses historical cell phone” location information—Location History as much as Cell Site Location Information [CSLI]) — It “conducts a search under the Fourth Amendment.”. In Chatrie the U.S. Supreme Court continued the trend established in Riley and Carpenter by emphasizing that constitutional protections are not diminished simply because data is stored by technology companies or as the court identifies them as third parties. As investigative technology advances, courts will continue applying traditional Fourth Amendment principles of Probable Cause, Reasonableness and Particularity to modern digital evidence.
Google Changes – On December 12, 2023 Google announced that they stopped collecting the very data that was used in the Chatrie geofence warrant ‘Your location information is personal. We’re committed to keeping it safe, private and in your control.’ https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/maps/updates-to-location-history-and-new-controls-coming-soon-to-maps/
What Google Keeps and Doesn’t Keep – The pertinent Google changes were explained “First, going forward, this data will be stored, by default, on a user’s device, instead of with Google in the cloud. Second, it will be set by default to delete after three months; currently Google stores the data for at least 18 months. Finally, if users choose to back up their data to the cloud, Google will “automatically encrypt your backed-up data so no one can read it, including Google.” https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/end-geofence-warrants?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Future of Geofence Warrants – Although Google has fundamentally changed how it stores users’ location data, making traditional Google geofence warrants largely obsolete, geofence investigations are unlikely to disappear. Other technology companies and mobile applications, including Apple, Lyft, Snapchat, Uber and future technologies yet to be developed, may possess location information relevant to criminal investigations. As law enforcement and courts confront these next-generation geofence warrants, the constitutional analysis will focus on the question the Supreme Court left unresolved in Chatrie: “[W]hether the warrant satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause and particularity requirements at each stage of the search process.” In other words, the future litigation will not focus on whether obtaining this type of digital location data constitutes a Fourth Amendment search—that question has now been answered – Yes. Instead, courts will determine whether each geofence warrant is sufficiently supported by probable cause and drafted with the particularity the Fourth Amendment requires.
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