Sixth Circuit: No Expectation of Privacy in Cell Phone GPS Data

[WSJ Law Blog]

Drug dealers, beware. You're pay-as-you-go phones probably have GPS. And, according to a federal appeals court in Cincinnati, police can track the signal they emit without a warrant.



The question in the case was whether Mr. Skinner had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data his phone emitted. It’s a question that several courts are wrestling with. Federal law enforcement authorities, as in this case, say that investigators don’t need search warrants to gather such information.

Justice Department lawyers argued in a court brief that “a suspect’s presence in a publicly observable place is not information subject to Fourth Amendment protection.”

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