Marketplace Tech · Wednesday, July 8, 2026
The Supreme Court has ruled in a 6-3 decision that digital data is covered by the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. Law professor Andrew Guthrie Ferguson explained that police will likely need a warrant to access location data, requiring probable cause of a crime before obtaining it.
“That trail of personal data from your phone? It's protected by the Fourth Amendment.”
“In Shatry versus the US, the court found digital data does fall under the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.”
“And the reason why it's a big deal is that the US government argued before the Supreme Court that they didn't need a warrant.”