---
title: "US Supreme Court: Police need warrant to search cell phone"
description: "US Supreme Court: Police need warrant to search cell phone"
---

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[Blog Home](http://www.cru-inc.com/blog) • US Supreme Court: Police need warrant to search cell phone

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## US Supreme Court: Police need warrant to search cell phone

Today, in a unanimous ruling, the US Supreme Court stated that police  
 officers need a warrant to search cell phones and other devices in  
 possession of people they arrest. The ruling states that the vast amount  
 of data contained on today's phones are protected from routine  
 inspection; one of the points made by the ruling is that we must today  
 distinguish between a handwritten note, for example, and the large volumes  
 of data we routinely generate and store on hard drives and data centers in  
 the cloud.

One implication of the Riley v California ruling may very well be that as  
 law enforcement agencies obtain warrants for searching devices, they will  
 also obtain warrants to search data stored in the cloud, since much of the  
 data (if not a superset) that can be presented via cell phone or other  
 device is also contained in the cloud. Given that workflows and  
 investigation procedures are being examined in light of the fact that data  
 is often stored on networks and in the cloud services of various kinds.

Much as the Supreme Court is saying that personal privacy is impacted by  
 technology, so too are investigative methods that now need to incorporate  
 techniques to investigate data stored in various locations.

We are early in the age of understanding the interrelations of digital footprint,  
 privacy, and investigation, so undoubtedly our thinking and laws will continue to  
 evolve. Early coverage of implications of the Riley v California decision can be  
 found in the [New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/25/us/annotated-supreme-court-cellphone-privacy-decision.html), [Washington Post](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/06/25/the-significance-of-riley/), and [Politico](http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/supreme-court-decision-cell-phone-warrant-108287.html).

 This entry was posted in [Digital Forensics](https://www.digistor.com/blog/topic/digital-forensics), [Data Security](https://www.digistor.com/blog/topic/data-security)   
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