The centrality of cell phones to our daily lives, and the wide array of sensitive information those phones may carry, creates a complex and ever-evolving series of privacy issues. While the fight between Apple and the FBI continues to develop, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last week reaffirmed the digital privacy rights of smartphone users by suppressing evidence obtained from a probationer’s cell phone. The information was discovered during a search conducted because he waived his Fourth Amendment rights as a condition of probation.
In United States v. Lara, police searched the cell phone of a man who was granted probation subject to a condition that required him to submit his “person or property, including any residence, premises, container, or vehicle” to search and seizure “without a warrant, probable cause, or reasonable suspicion.” During that search, police discovered pictures of a handgun, and a text message exchange indicating he intended to sell the gun. Using GPS data attached to the pictures, law enforcement secured a warrant to search his mother’s home, where the gun was found. He was subsequently charged as a felon in possession of a firearm, and the federal trial court denied his motion to suppress the evidence on grounds that the search violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
The Ninth Circuit reversed that denial, holding that his substantial privacy interest in the contents of his phone outweighed the government’s interests in combating recidivism and helping probationers integrate back into the community, and thus the search was unreasonable. The court acknowledged that the probationer had lesser privacy interests due to his probation and search term. However, the court held that his privacy interests were still substantial, and the search term he agreed to did not include cell phone data — meaning his expectation that his cell phone would be free from search was reasonable. The court also affirmed the rationale laid out in Riley v. California, where the U.S. Supreme Court held that police may not search a cell phone seized during an arrest without a warrant. That decision was based on the argument that a cell phone search would expose to the government far more information than the most exhaustive search of a house, and, thus, there is a high expectation of privacy in data contained in those devices.
This case continues an evolution on how courts view cell phones and the data they contain. Once again, courts have found cell phones to be more than just a “container” or property similar to what is usually open to search as part of a probation condition. Rather, the court affirmed the centrality of cell phones in containing and keeping safe vital, private information that should be protected from warrantless search. This case represents another in a line of victories for data-privacy supporters, and continues a judicial evolution on the question of what defines a reasonable expectation of privacy in the modern age.
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