General information
Cell phone privacy, ACLU.
Multimedia website explaining cell phone privacy issues all over the U.S.
Cellphone searches after arrest, Nolo.
Information about police officers searching cellphones, including if they can make you unlock your phone.
Do the police need a warrant to track you with your cell phone?, Nolo.
Discusses case law and what certain words mean in cases addressing cell phone location data.
The Massachusetts digital evidence guide, Mass. Attorney General, 2023.
This Guide helps you learn about laws in Massachusetts for criminal cases involving technology or digital evidence. Search and Seizure law is based on the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article Fourteen of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, which is like the Federal Fourth Amendment but sometimes covers more situations.
Selected cases
Cell phone data
Alasaad v. Mayorkas, 988 F.3d 8 (2021)
“[A]dvanced searches of electronic devices at the border do not require a warrant or probable cause.”
Comm. v. Carrasquillo, 489 Mass. 107 (2022)
"A Superior Court judge properly denied the criminal defendant's pretrial motion to suppress electronic social media content that he unknowingly had shared with an undercover police officer, where the officer's viewing and recording of video recordings (‘stories’) that the defendant had shared via the Snapchat social media application did not constitute an unreasonable search … given that the defendant, who was unaware of the privacy settings on his Snapchat account, did not demonstrate a subjective expectation of privacy in his Snapchat video recordings; and given that … the defendant had no objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the video recordings, in that he did not adequately control access to his Snapchat account and that the asserted government intrusion took place with the defendant's permission."
Comm. v. Feliz, 486 Mass. 510 (2020)
“[B]alancing the defendant's compelling privacy interest in the contents of his electronic devices against the Commonwealth's interests in furthering its probationary goals by means of the condition of probation and preventing sexual exploitation and abuse of children ... was constitutional.”
Comm. v. Henley, 488 Mass. 95 (2021)
"Although general or exploratory searches are not permitted, requiring a search warrant application to identify specific locations or files on a cell phone to be searched places an unrealistic burden on law enforcement and restricts legitimate search objectives, given the storage capacity and file structure of most cell phones."
Comm. v. Snow, 486 Mass. 582 (2021)
“[T]he correct remedy for a lack of particularity in a warrant to search a criminal defendant's cellular telephone is suppression of evidence that falls outside a reasonable scope; thus, although this court concluded that a search warrant of a criminal defendant's cellular telephone properly included call logs, text messages, and certain video recordings, this court remanded the matter for further proceedings to determine whether each piece of proffered evidence would fall within a reasonable temporal limit.”
Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014)
"The police generally may not, without a warrant, search digital information on a cell phone seized from an individual who has been arrested."
Cell phone location information
Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018)
“[A]n individual maintains a legitimate expectation of privacy in the record of his physical movements as captured through CSLI.”
Comm. v. Almonor, 482 Mass. 35 (2019)
“[P]olice action that causes an individual's cellular telephone to transmit its real-time location intrudes on the individual's reasonable expectation of privacy in the real-time location of his or her cellular telephone (and thus, in essence, the real-time location of its user), and therefore, such police action constitutes a search.”
Comm. v. Arrington, 493 Mass. 478 (2024)
“A Superior Court judge did not abuse his discretion in denying the Commonwealth's motion to admit in evidence expert testimony regarding frequent location history data retrieved from the criminal defendant's cell phone, where the Commonwealth failed to meet its burden of showing that such data had been generally accepted as reliable by the scientific community … ; that the data had been sufficiently tested to show its reliability … ; and that the data had been subjected to peer review or publication and did not have an unacceptably high known or potential rate of error.”
Comm. v. Augustine, 467 Mass. 230 (2014)
“[A]lthough historical cell site location information for the criminal defendant's cellular telephone constituted a business record of the defendant's cellular telephone service provider, he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in that information … and in the circumstances of the case, the Commonwealth was obliged to secure a search warrant supported by probable cause before obtaining such information from the cellular telephone service provider.”
Comm. v. Estabrook, 472 Mass. 852 (2015)
“[T]he Commonwealth may obtain historical cell site location information for a period of six hours or less relating to an identified person's cellular telephone from a cellular telephone service provider without obtaining a search warrant, because such a request does not violate the person's constitutionally protected expectation of privacy.”
Comm. v. Perry, 489 Mass. 436 (2022)
“This court set forth prospective limitations on the issuance of search warrants seeking cell site location information (CSLI) from multiple cell towers corresponding to the location of offenses during a particular time frame, requiring that only a judge may issue such a search warrant and that the warrant must contain a protocol for the prompt and permanent disposal of any and all data that does not fit within the object of the search following the conclusion of the prosecution … ; further, this court concluded that its holding that investigators are obligated to obtain a search warrant before acquiring or analyzing CSLI from multiple cell towers applied prospectively only.”
Comm. v. Raspberry, 93 Mass.App.Ct. 633 (2018)
"Search was justified under the emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement, because the police had a 'good faith, reasonable belief that there was a serious and imminent threat to human life'."
Third party searches
Comm. v. Fredericq, 482 Mass. 70 (2019)
“A criminal defendant had standing to challenge the warrantless police tracking of a cellular telephone through which the police obtained cell site location information (CSLI), where, by continuously monitoring the telephone's CSLI, the police effectively monitored the movement of the motor vehicle in which the defendant was a passenger, thus implicating his reasonable expectation of privacy.”
Comm. v. Lugo, 482 Mass. 94 (2019)
“A Superior Court judge properly denied the criminal defendant's pretrial motion to suppress evidence obtained as a result of the police causing the cellular telephones of the defendant and a third party to reveal their real-time locations, where the defendant lacked standing to contest the search of the third party's cellular telephone.”
Web sources
Fourth Amendment Center, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Covers topics including device searches, border searches, digital location tracking, and reverse search warrants (geofence warrants). Sample motions and references to notable case law are also provided.
Street level surveillance, Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Provides an overview of surveillance case law and technologies, including cell-site simulators, forensic extraction tools, and real-time location tracking.
Print sources
Criminal lawyer’s data harvesting lab, MCLE, 2024.
Criminal practice and procedure, 4th ed., (Mass Practice v. 30-30B) Thomson Reuters, 2014 with supplement.
Sections 5:163-5:166.
Motor vehicle law and practice: With forms, 5th ed. (Mass Practice v. 11-12) Thomson Reuters, 2021 with supplement.
Sections 18:63 – 18:64 Search of cellular telephones and electronic devices, Cell site location services and global positioning systems.
NACDL resource manual: Digital evidence & technology in criminal cases, NACDL, 2023.
Suppression matters under Massachusetts law, LexisNexis Matthew Bender, annual. (2024 eBook available with library card)
Contact
Online
| Last updated: | June 3, 2025 |
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