The United States Supreme Court has decided that cellphone location data is protected by the Fourth Amendment. This ruling significantly affects how law enforcement can use geofence warrants during criminal investigations.

美國最高法院已裁定，手機位置數據受到第四修正案的保護。這項裁決顯著影響了執法部門在刑事調查中如何使用地理圍欄搜查令。

The decision came from the case of Chatrie v. United States, which started after an armed robbery in Virginia in 2019. In that case, police used a geofence warrant to force Google to identify every mobile device within a specific 17.5-acre area during a two-hour window. This process is different from traditional police work because, instead of targeting a specific suspect based on evidence, it collects data from everyone in a certain area to find a suspect. Consequently, this method has raised concerns about whether it violates the constitutional requirement for warrants to be specific.

這項決定源於 Chatrie v. United States 案，該案始於 2019 年在維吉尼亞州發生的一起持械搶劫案。在那起案件中，警方使用地理圍欄搜查令，強制 Google 在兩小時的時間窗口內，識別出特定 17.5 英畝區域內的所有行動裝置。這個過程與傳統的警察偵查不同，因為它不是根據證據針對特定嫌疑人，而是收集特定區域內所有人的數據以尋找嫌疑人。因此，這種方法引起了人們對其是否違反搜查令必須具體之憲法要求的擔憂。

The government argued that people give up their right to privacy when they choose to use location services on their phones. However, in a 6-3 decision, the Court rejected this argument. The judges emphasized that using a smartphone does not mean a person agrees to give up their constitutional protections. This ruling follows a previous case from 2018, Carpenter v. United States, which also recognized that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding their location data. On the other hand, the minority of judges argued that information shared with a third party, like Google, should not be private.

政府主張，當人們選擇在手機上使用位置服務時，即表示放棄了私隱權。然而，法院以 6 比 3 的裁決駁回了這一論點。法官強調，使用智慧型手機並不意味著一個人同意放棄其憲法保障。這項裁決延續了 2018 年的 Carpenter v. United States 案例，該案同樣承認人們對其位置數據具有合理的私隱期待。另一方面，少數派法官則認為，與 Google 等第三方分享的資訊不應被視為私隱。

Furthermore, the use of this surveillance technology has grown rapidly. Google reported that requests for geofence data increased by 1,500% between 2017 and 2018. Between 2021 and 2023, these warrants made up more than 25% of all law enforcement requests to the company. This technology works by combining data from cell towers, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth signals, often using artificial intelligence to analyze user behavior.

此外，這種監控技術的應用迅速增長。Google 報告指出，地理圍欄數據的請求在 2017 年至 2018 年間增長了 1,500%。在 2021 年至 2023 年間，這類搜查令佔了執法部門向該公司提出所有請求的 25% 以上。這項技術透過結合基地台、Wi-Fi 和藍牙訊號的數據，通常利用人工智慧來分析用戶行為。

The Supreme Court has now sent the case back to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to decide if the specific warrant used in the Chatrie case followed the law.

最高法院現已將此案發回美國第四巡迴上訴法院，以判定 Chatrie 案中使用的特定搜查令是否合法。