New Jersey Supreme Court Restricts Police Searches of Phone Data

An anonymous reader sends this quote from the NY Times: "Staking out new ground in the noisy debate about technology and privacy in law enforcement, the New Jersey Supreme Court on Thursday ordered that the police will now have to get a search warrant before obtaining tracking information from cellphone providers. The ruling (PDF) puts the state at the forefront of efforts to define the boundaries around a law enforcement practice that a national survey last year showed was routine, and typically done without court oversight or public awareness. With lower courts divided on the use of cellphone tracking data, legal experts say, the issue is likely to end up before the United States Supreme Court. The New Jersey decision also underscores the extent of the battles over government intrusion into personal data in a quickly advancing digital age, from small town police departments to the National Security Agency's surveillance of e-mail and cellphone conversations."

Re:It does need an exception

[MysteriousPreacher]

There has to obviously be an exception to the rule to allow for exigent circumstances, like when someone is kidnapped or they are trying to locate an active shooter.

Definitely - this comes down to probable cause.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probable_cause [wikipedia.org]

It should be very specific and justified, which is something that needs to be permissible. What needs to go away are the fishing expeditions and general riffling through personal data for persons where there is no probable cause. Probable cause shouldn't even require a warrant if there's an immediate threat. However it should only apply when there are criminal charges in mind, and a suspect. i.e. tracking a kidnap victims cellphone is demonstrably different to pulling phone location for people without reasonable grounds to consider criminal charges against these particular people.

Privacy expectations aside, it's not too difficult to build up a solid list of criteria under which it would be reasonable to pry. For one, firemen don't get charged with breaking and entering when they kick down a door to search a burning house. It's quite clear though that this doesn't mean fireman can go kick down the door of any given house without reason to suspect a fire or similar emergency within their remit.