Geolocation Tracking Ban

Status: In committee

Key issues: First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Privacy, Surveillance, Police Practices

Jurisdiction: New York State

Bill Number: A407 Solages \ S404 Myrie

Bill Sponsor: Assembly Member Michaelle Solages \ State Senator Zellnor Myrie

S.T.O.P. is a lead advocate for the enactment of a geolocation surveillance ban, which would prevent large-scale location tracking, with or without a warrant. As electronic location tracking has been attempted as a method of controlling the COVID-19 outbreak around the world, the ability of governments—with the help of technology companies—to track their citizens’ every move has been on full display. But the current criasis must not be used as cover to allow law enforcement agencies to access New Yorkers’ deeply personal location data without evidence that they have committed a crime. 

The amount of data that technology companies have about their users is staggering; cellphones, for example, record location data—tracking their users’ every move. This geolocation data, once analyzed, provides intimate details about a person’s life: where they live, how they worship, which doctors they visit, and much more. The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that searches of this data can be just as invasive as searching a person’s home, and that law enforcement must have a warrant to do so.

But law enforcement agencies in New York have found a loophole, convincing courts to grant “reverse location” search warrants. Unlike normal search warrants, which authorize the search of a person suspected of a crime, reverse location search warrants order technology companies to turn over the data of all users in a certain geographic area at a certain time. These areas can be incredibly large, meaning that police gain access to the intimate personal details of hundreds or thousands of New Yorkers who are not suspected of any crime, but simply happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. In addition to infringing New Yorkers’ fundamental right of privacy, this practice also threatens their rights to freedom of religion and speech—reverse search warrants have been used, for instance, to track down and harass political protesters.

This bill would outlaw these abusive practices, prohibiting courts from issuing reverse search warrants and law enforcement agencies from seeking them. It is more necessary now than ever before, as governments use COVID-19 to justify previously unthinkable surveillance regimes. To that end, this law is exempt from the Governor’s newly-granted power to suspend laws during perceived emergencies—recognizing that New Yorkers’ core constitutional rights cannot be suspended at the government’s whim.

Panel Discussion

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• 5/19/2023 City Limits - Opinion: Geofence Warrants Violate NY’s Constitution. Let’s Ban Them.

• 6/5/2023 Slate - The Police Surveillance Tool Too Dangerous to Ignore

• 1/22/2023 SheKnows - Without Roe v. Wade, Abortion Cyber Safety is the New ‘Talk’ Parents Have to Give Their Teens

• 1/19/2024 Times Union - Commentary: New York must ban digital dragnets that use cellphone data

• 12/15/2023 Gizmodo - Google Finally Stops Handing Your Location Data to Cops

• 7/18/2023 The Hill - Patients seeking abortion, gender-affirming care at risk of increased surveillance: report

• 7/18/2023 Huffpost - New Report Warns Of Growing Surveillance Threat For Abortions Or Gender-Affirming Care

• 6/16/2020 Casetext - Protocol: New York lawmakers want to outlaw geofence warrants as protests grow

• 6/11/2020 OneZero - Google’s Geofence Warrants Face a Major Legal Challenge

• 6/12/2020 Law360 - Protests, Virus Boost NY Bill To Ban Geofence Warrants

• 6/16/2020 CNET - Geofence warrants: How police get data from all devices in targeted areas

• 4/13/2019 New York Times - Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police

• 8/12/2019 Gothamist - Manhattan DA Got Innocent People’s Google Phone Data Through a ‘Reverse Location’ Search Warrant

• 1/17/2020 Fast Company - This Unsettling Practice Turns Your Phone into a Tracking Device for the Government

• 2/19/2020 Slate - Close Enough: Police Departments Are Using “Reverse Location Search Warrants” to Force Google to Hand Over Data on Anyone Near a Crime Scene

Media

Legislative Materials

• Reverse Location Search Prohibition Act text

• NYCLU Legislative Memo on prohibiting the use of reverse location and reverse keyword searches (A84-S296)

Other Resources

• Letter in Support of the Reverse Location and Reverse Keyword Search Prohibition Act

• S.T.O.P. Memorandum of Support

• Press Release: S.T.O.P. Welcomes Introduction Of NY Geolocation Tracking Ban

• 8/24/20 Order Finding Geofence Warrants Unconstitutional.

• Tech: NYC Reverse Location & Keyword Warrants Memo