https://readplaintext.com/come-back-with-a-warrant-the-potential-impact-of-the-carpenter-decision-beyond-cell-phones-a307f864b64d

This summer, the Supreme Court ruled in Carpenter v. United States that cell phone location information was subject to Fourth Amendment protections rather than the third party doctrine, which allows law enforcement to obtain such information with only a subpoena. In general, this ruling reflects contemporary norms about how we use today’s technology to share personal information with a third party without fully abolishing the third party doctrine.

By subjecting certain data to Fourth Amendment protections, the Court increased the standard that must be met for law enforcement to access such data as part of an investigation. Under the prior standard that only required a subpoena, it was easier for prosecutors and law enforcement to prove that such information was necessary to the investigation. For data protected by the Fourth Amendment, law enforcement must show probable cause and obtain a warrant from a judge before requesting such information. Ideally this will limit such requests to only the data actually relevant to the case and help provide a check on civil liberties.