A geofence warrant or a reverse location warrant is a

search warrant A search warrant is a court order that a magistrate or judge issues to authorize Police, law enforcement officers to conduct a Search and seizure, search of a person, location, or vehicle for evidence of a crime and to Confiscation, confiscate an ...

issued by a court to allow

law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of the government or other social institutions who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by investigating, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms gove ...

to search a database to find all active

mobile devices A mobile device or handheld device is a computer small enough to hold and operate in hand. Mobile devices are typically battery-powered and possess a flat-panel display and one or more built-in input devices, such as a touchscreen or keypad. Mod ...

within a particular

geo-fence A geofence is a virtual "perimeter" or "fence" around a given geographic feature. A geofence can be dynamically generated (as in a radius around a point location) or match a predefined set of boundaries (such as school zones or neighborhood b ...

area. Courts have granted law enforcement geo-fence warrants to obtain information from databases such as

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

's Sensorvault, which collects users' historical

geolocation Geopositioning is the process of determining or estimating the geographic position of an object or a person. Geopositioning yields a set of Geographic coordinate system, geographic coordinates (such as latitude and longitude) in a given map datum ...

data. Geo-fence warrants are a part of a category of warrants known as reverse search warrants.

History

Geofence warrants were first used in 2016.

reported that it had received 982 such warrants in 2018, 8,396 in 2019, and 11,554 in 2020. A 2021 transparency report showed that 25% of data requests from law enforcement to Google were geo-fence data requests. Google is the most common recipient of geo-fence warrants and the main provider of such data, although companies including

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

Snapchat Snapchat is an American multimedia social media and instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of the app are that pictures and messages, known as "snaps", are usually availa ...

Lyft Lyft, Inc. is an American company offering ride-hailing services, motorized scooters, and bicycle-sharing systems in the United States and Canada. Lyft sets fares, which vary using a dynamic pricing model based on local supply and demand a ...

, and

Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. is an American multinational transportation company that provides Ridesharing company, ride-hailing services, courier services, food delivery, and freight transport. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California, a ...

have also received such warrants.

Legality

United States

Some lawyers and privacy experts believe reverse search warrants are unconstitutional under the

Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. It prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and sets requirements for issuing warrants: warrants must be issued by a judge or magistra ...

, which protects people from unreasonable

searches and seizures Search and seizure is a procedure used in many civil law and common law legal systems by which police or other authorities and their agents, who, suspecting that a crime has been committed, commence a search of a person's property and confisca ...

, and requires any search warrants be specific to what and to whom they apply. The Fourth Amendment specifies that warrants may only be issued "upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Some lawyers, legal scholars, and privacy experts have likened reverse search warrants to general warrants, which were made illegal by the Fourth Amendment. Groups including the

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...

have opposed geo-fence warrants in amicus briefs filed in motions to quash such orders to disclose geo-fence data. In 2024 the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that geofence warrants are "categorically prohibited by the Fourth Amendment."

References

Geographic position Internet privacy Google Databases Warrants Law enforcement terminology Searches and seizures {{DEFAULTSORT:Geo-fence warrant

History

Legality

United States

See also

References