In the closing days of its 2025 – 2026 term, the U.S. Supreme Court issued one of the most consequential digital privacy decisions in a generation. In Chatrie v. United States, No. 25‑112, 2026 WL 1855568 (June 29, 2026), the Court held that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in records of their cell phone location. As a result, law enforcement conducts a Fourth Amendment "search" when it accesses historical location data through a geofence warrant – even where the data covers only a short window and is held by a third-party technology company. The Court left for the court of appeals the separate question of whether the search was reasonable – that is, whether each step of the warrant process was supported by probable cause and described with particularity.
Why this matters: The decision resolves years of lower court disagreement over geofence warrants, an investigative tool that inverts the ordinary order of an investigation. Rather than starting with a suspect and tracing his movements, law enforcement starts with a place and time and sweeps the location records of everyone who happened to be there – potentially many innocent people – to identify a suspect. For companies that hold historical location data, Chatrie reshapes the legal terrain.
The bottom line for businesses: Precise geolocation data is now squarely protected by the Fourth Amendment, and any company that holds it must be able to measure law enforcement demands against the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirements. Companies that receive – or may receive – geofence or similar location data demands face heightened legal exposure, more complex compliance obligations, and greater risk of being pulled into litigation. The prudent response is to act now – inventory the precise location data you hold, harden law enforcement request protocols, and reexamine how that data is stored – rather than manage the problem only after a demand arrives.
Background
Geofence Warrants
A geofence is a virtual perimeter around a specific geographic location. Companies commonly use geofencing for business purposes such as targeted advertising. Law enforcement uses geofence warrants – typically when the time and place of a crime are known but the suspect is not – to compel companies to identify the smartphones present within the geofence during a specified window and, from there, the phones' owners. A geofence warrant works in reverse from a traditional search warrant: instead of beginning with an identified suspect whose movements are then tracked, it begins with a location and sweeps the private records of numerous people to find a suspect.
The Fourth Amendment Framework
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." Courts apply a two-part analysis. First, did a "search" occur? A search generally occurs when the government intrudes on an expectation of privacy that society recognizes as reasonable. Chatrie, 2026 WL 1855568, at *2.
Second, if a search occurred, was it "reasonable"? Reasonableness ordinarily requires a warrant from "a neutral and detached magistrate," issued only when "probable cause is properly established and the scope of the authorized search is set out with particularity." Id. at *3 (citing Kentucky v. King, 563 U.S. 452, 459 (2011)). "General warrants" – those that lack particularity and leave to executing officers' discretion whom to arrest and where to search – are "plainly unconstitutional." Steagald v. United States, 451 U.S. 204, 220 (1981). Their colonial-era abuse, which allowed British officers to rummage through homes in unrestrained searches for evidence, was a primary impetus for the Fourth Amendment. Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373, 403 (2014).
The Chatrie Decision
What the Court Held
Virginia police obtained a geofence warrant directing Google to turn over location data for cell phones within a 150-meter radius of a credit union around the time it was robbed. The data came from Google's Location History service, which logs the location of a user's phone roughly every two minutes. The warrant set out a three-step process for obtaining the data. Google ultimately produced identifying information for three users, including Okello Chatrie, who was charged with robbery and related firearms offenses.
Chatrie moved to suppress, arguing that officers obtained the data through a Fourth Amendment search conducted under a defective warrant. The district court denied the motion under the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule. 590 F. Supp. 3d 901, 905 (E.D. Va. 2022). A divided Fourth Circuit panel affirmed on different grounds, holding that no search occurred because Chatrie had no reasonable expectation of privacy in two hours' worth of location data voluntarily exposed to Google. 107 F.4th 319, 325 (4th Cir. 2024). On rehearing en banc, the Fourth Circuit affirmed in a one-sentence per curiam opinion, splitting evenly on the search question. 136 F.4th 100 (4th Cir. 2025) (en banc). The Supreme Court granted certiorari limited to whether the police violated the Fourth Amendment in obtaining Chatrie's location data.
The Court held that the officers conducted a Fourth Amendment search when they acquired Chatrie's location data from Google, because an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell phone location information.
The Court grounded its analysis in Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018), which held that government access to historical cell-site location information (CSLI) is a Fourth Amendment search because "individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of their physical movements." Id. at 310. CSLI, Carpenter explained, offers a "detailed" and "encyclopedic" record of a person's whereabouts – "an intimate window into a person's life" – because a cell phone "faithfully follows" its owner into "private residences, doctor's offices, political headquarters, and other potentially revealing locales."
Everything that made CSLI constitutionally significant, the Chatrie Court reasoned, "applies as well or better" to location data. That data is more precise, pinpointing a device within roughly 20 meters and even estimating which floor of a building it is on. It is far more frequent, logging a device's position about every two minutes, versus an average of 101 data points per day for the CSLI in Carpenter. And it is more personal: users often treat Location History as a personal journal – akin to emails, photographs, or calendars – that they reasonably expect to be shielded from the "inquisitive eyes" of the government.
The ruling also forecloses two central government defenses. First, the Court rejected the argument that accessing only a short span of location data is not a search: "[w]here the Fourth Amendment applies, it applies regardless of 'the quality or quantity of the information' the government obtains." Second, the Court declined to extend the third-party doctrine, under which a person ordinarily has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information voluntarily turned over to others. Users do not forfeit Fourth Amendment protection merely by enabling location services. The Court reasoned that location data is deeply revealing and "not truly shared" in any meaningful sense – its exposure to Google is simply a byproduct of using a cell phone.
What the Court Did Not Decide
Chatrie decided only that a search occurred. It did not decide whether the multi-step geofence warrant at issue – or geofence warrants generally – satisfy the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness requirements. That question, including whether the multi-step geofence process is too sweeping to satisfy the particularity requirement (making such warrants unconstitutional "general warrants"), returns to the Fourth Circuit on remand and remains unresolved.
Analysis & Takeaways
Broad Reach, Amplified Risk
Chatrie's reach extends well beyond Google and the specific three-step warrant procedure at issue. Framed broadly around "cell phone location data," the decision's reasoning applies to any third party holding precise, retrospective records of individuals' movements – ride-share and navigation providers, connected-vehicle manufacturers, fitness and weather apps, and AdTech vendors among them. The Court itself noted that other leading technology and digital platform companies also regularly receive geofence warrants and similar demands.
For companies that use, possess, or retain location data, Chatrie cuts two ways. It strengthens the basis for insisting on a valid warrant before producing location data – a shield against overbroad demands and a reassurance to privacy-conscious customers. But it also raises the cost of getting the response wrong: producing location data without an adequate warrant, or retaining a centrally searchable trove of historical location records, now carries amplified litigation and reputational risk.
A Landscape Still in Motion
Chatrie settles the threshold "search" question, but the law governing location data remains a moving target on several fronts:
- Unresolved constitutional questions: Before Chatrie, the Fifth Circuit had held geofence warrants categorically unconstitutional as general warrants, United States v. Smith, 110 F.4th 817 (5th Cir. 2024), while the en banc Fourth Circuit split evenly on whether any search occurred. Chatrie resolves the search question nationwide, but leaves the thornier particularity and probable cause questions to percolate in the lower courts.
- Federal statutes: Compelled disclosure of stored location data is also governed by the Stored Communications Act (SCA), 18 U.S.C. § 2703, which sets the statutory conditions for compelling providers to turn over customer records and content. Companies must navigate the SCA alongside the constitutional rules.
- State law: A growing number of state consumer privacy and surveillance laws treat precise geolocation as "sensitive data" subject to heightened protection, and some now prohibit certain processing of it outright. These obligations operate independently of the Fourth Amendment. For more information on New Jersey's new sensitive data law – which outright bans many common commercial uses of sensitive data (including location data), and carries severe civil penalties of $50,000 per record for noncompliance –read New Jersey Enacts Ban on Sensitive Data Sales: What Businesses Must Do Now, where we break down the key components of the Garden State law, how it fits alongside other jurisdictions that have enacted similar sensitive data prohibitions, and offer compliance strategies that can be implemented now to limit enforcement exposure for noncompliance.
- Corporate data architecture: The Court noted that, in July 2025, Google began storing Location History on users' own devices, rather than on its servers, and represents it can no longer respond to geofence warrants for that data. Keeping location data out of a centrally searchable repository sharply limits warrants' future utility.
Practical Steps to Take Now
Companies that hold location data should treat Chatrie as a catalyst for a focused, prioritized assessment of their location data and law enforcement request practices. Here's how:
- Inventory and map location data. Identify what location data the company collects, how granular it is, how long it is retained, and – critically – whether it sits in a centrally searchable repository that could be responsive to a geofence demand.
- Audit law enforcement request workflows. Map how the company receives, escalates, and responds to law enforcement requests for location data, and confirm that a knowledgeable decision-maker, supported by privacy counsel, is engaged before any data is produced.
- Require and scrutinize warrants. Update response protocols to require a warrant for precise location data and to evaluate whether each warrant is supported by probable cause and describes the search process with sufficient particularity – pushing back on overbroad or insufficiently bounded demands.
- Revisit data architecture, minimization, and retention. Assess whether location data can be stored on-device, de-identified, aggregated, or retained for shorter periods – reducing exposure to geofence warrants and other location data demands, and lowering the company's overall risk profile.
- Align privacy notices and consents. Ensure external-facing privacy notices and consent mechanisms accurately describe how location data is collected, retained, and disclosed, including the possibility of compelled disclosure to law enforcement.
- Integrate constitutional and statutory compliance. Build SCA and state sensitive data obligations into the same workflow, rather than treating the Fourth Amendment in isolation.
- Train and test. Educate the teams that field geofence warrants and similar location data requests, and pressure-test response protocols through tabletop exercises before a real demand arrives.
The Final Word
Chatrie confirms what the trajectory of Fourth Amendment law has signaled for years: location data sits at the center of modern privacy law, and the legal exposure for companies that process or hold it is only increasing. Companies that act now – auditing their location data and law enforcement request practices, closing compliance gaps, and involving experienced privacy counsel early – will be far better positioned than those left improvising under the pressure of a live demand or litigation.
Baker Donelson's privacy team regularly advises clients across industries on sensitive data compliance, responding to geofence warrants and similar law enforcement requests, and the broader multistate privacy landscape. If you have questions about how the Chatrie decision could affect your business, contact the author, David Oberly, or another member of Baker Donelson's Data Privacy & Cybersecurity, Digital Marketing, AdTech & Consumer Privacy Compliance, or Privacy Litigation teams.