RICHMOND, VA. — The U.S. Supreme Court restricted the use of geofence warrants in a 6-3 decision issued on June 26, 2026. The ruling requires law enforcement to obtain individualized suspicion before acquiring mass location data from technology companies.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote the majority opinion. "Writing for the 6-3 majority, Justice Kagan said that the technique, known as geofencing, violates the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches." A geofence warrant involves drawing a virtual fence around a geographic area where a crime was committed. The government then seeks a warrant to require a tech company to search its data to identify users who were within the geofence at the time of the crime.

The case stems from a robbery in the suburbs of Richmond, Va., where a man stole $195,000 from a bank. Detectives served a warrant on Google asking for location information of cellphone users in and around the bank for the hour before and after the crime. Google initially found the names of 19 people who were in or near the bank before ultimately providing police with the names of three people whose location data showed they were at the bank.

Police found a pistol matching one seen on security camera footage and nearly $100,000 in cash at the home of one of the three individuals, Okello Chatrie. Chatrie confessed to the crime, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Chatrie's attorneys argued in filings that geofence searches violate the Fourth Amendment because they allow the government "to search first and develop suspicions later."

Matthew Tokson, a law professor at the University of Utah, stated, "If the government doesn't need to … link something to a crime, it could monitor a protest or an abortion clinic or a gun range or a church or an AA meeting or a doctor's office." Google acknowledged in legal filings that these searches "often run a high risk of sweeping in innocent users–sometimes thousands of them." The company also stated that these inquiries frequently cover private homes, government buildings, and places of worship where law enforcement has not established probable cause for a search.

The government argued in its filings that since individuals can choose not to provide location data to companies like Google, such data is not constitutionally protected. Chatrie had opted in to an optional Google "location history" feature that documented his location every few minutes. Government filings noted that about one-third of active Google account holders opted into this service. However, Chatrie's lawyers noted in court documents that more than 500 million Google users had opted into the location history service.