Jennifer Pinsof and Jennifer Lynch write:
EFF legal intern Noam Shemtov was the principal author of this post.
When police have a warrant to search a phone, should they be able to see everything on the phone—from family photos to communications with your doctor to everywhere you’ve been since you first started using the phone—in other words, data that is in no way connected to the crime they’re investigating? The Michigan Supreme Court just ruled no.
In People v. Carson, the court held that to satisfy the Fourth Amendment, warrants authorizing searches of cell phones and other digital devices must contain express limitations on the data police can review, restricting searches to data that they can establish is clearly connected to the crime.
EFF, along with ACLU National and the ACLU of Michigan, filed an amicus brief in Carson, expressly calling on the court to limit the scope of cell phone search warrants. We explained that the realities of modern cell phones call for a strict application of rules governing the scope of warrants. Without clear limits, warrants would become de facto licenses to look at everything on the device, a great universe of information that amounts to “the sum of an individual’s private life.”
Read more at EFF.