Is This the End of Geofence Warrants?
By Jennifer Lynch Google announced this week that it will be making several important changes to the way it handles users’ “Location History” data. These…
Jennifer Lynch
Colorado Supreme Court Upholds Keyword Search Warrant
By Jennifer Lynch and Andrew Crocker Today, the Colorado Supreme Court became the first state supreme court in the country to address the constitutionality of…
First Appellate Court Finds Geofence Warrant Unconstitutional
By Jennifer Lynch The California Court of Appeal has held that a geofence warrant seeking information on all devices located within several densely-populated areas in…
EFF Files Amicus Brief Challenging Orange County, CA’s Controversial DNA Collection Program
By Jennifer Lynch, Saira Hussain, and Andrew Crocker Should the government be allowed to collect your DNA—and retain it indefinitely—if you’re arrested for a low-level…
First Court in California Suppresses Evidence from Overbroad Geofence Warrant
By Jennifer Lynch A California trial court has held a geofence warrant issued to the San Francisco Police Department violated the Fourth Amendment and California’s…
Not Just San Francisco: Police Across the Country are Retaining and Searching DNA of Victims and Innocent People
By Jennifer Lynch This week we learned that San Francisco Police used a woman’s own DNA—collected years earlier as part of an investigation into her…
In 2021, the Police Took a Page Out of the NSA’s Playbook: 2021 in Review
By Jennifer Lynch With increasing frequency, law enforcement has been using unconstitutional, suspicionless digital dragnet searches in an attempt to identify unknown suspects in criminal…
Maryland and Montana Pass the Nation’s First Laws Restricting Law Enforcement Access to Genetic Genealogy Databases
By Jennifer Lynch Last week, Maryland and Montana passed laws requiring judicial authorization to search consumer DNA databases in criminal investigations. These are welcome and…
New Federal Court Rulings Find Geofence Warrants Unconstitutional
By Jennifer Lynch and Nathaniel Sobel Two federal magistrate judges in three separate opinions have ruled that a geofence warrant violates the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause…
Courts Issue Rulings in Two Cases Challenging Law Enforcement Searches of License Plate Databases
By Jennifer Lynch This week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in United States v. Yang, a case challenging the search of…
Courts Grapple with a Sea Change in Fourth Amendment Law After Carpenter v US: Year in Review 2019
By Jennifer Lynch Last year, the Supreme Court issued a landmark opinion in a case we’ve written about a lot, called Carpenter v. United States,…
Genetic Genealogy Company GEDmatch Acquired by Company With Ties to FBI & Law Enforcement—Why You Should Be Worried
By Jennifer Lynch This week, GEDmatch, a genetic genealogy company that gained notoriety for giving law enforcement access to its customers’ DNA data, quietly informed…
Facebook is Changing Its Face Recognition Settings. We Have Questions.
By Jennifer Lynch and Adam Schwartz Yesterday Facebook announced it was changing its settings for face recognition, which it has used since 2010 to match…
