You have an expectation of privacy in location data that reveals your movements in the physical world, and even short-term surveillance of these movements is a search subject to the Fourth Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today in Chatrie v. United States. The case involved geofence warrants...
This sounds like a great step in the right direction. Would this have any effect retrospectively?
Disclaimer -> NAL. I think it’s extraordinarily rare for rulings to have retroactive effect. If sth was legal when you did it, you can’t be held to account if that thing becomes illegal later on. That would open up all kinds of bad probs. Editing to add, your ability to follow the law today, can’t require that you successfully predict future laws or future court decisions.
But geo-fence data already collected would fall under this decision in the future. So let’s say there’s 2024 data. Data still exists on some Google server. Now it’s 2028. Cops would need a warrant to obtain the 2024 data in 2028.
That’s my understanding. Again NAL.
A definitely not l lawyer ,but also though that, not knowing/understanding a law usually does not shield you from said law, right? And doesn’t the ruling mainly clarify what the law actually “means”?
If that is the case I could still try actions made in the past, no?