Official U.S. Government information about the
Global Positioning System (GPS) and related topics
GPS Location Privacy
On this page:
This page provides information about U.S. judicial rulings, legislation, and federal policies concerning GPS and personal privacy. It is not intended to influence or express opinions on any ongoing legal deliberations.
The government's GPS satellites are one-way beacons that cannot track you or anything on the ground. But commercially available GPS devices with communication or recording features can help users keep track of everything from vehicles and cargo to people and animals.
The use of GPS technology to covertly monitor suspects, employees, customers, and other people raises questions about individual privacy rights. Several lawsuits and legislative actions have sought to address these questions, but much remains unresolved today.
Judicial Rulings
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution grants Americans certain privacy rights by protecting them from "unreasonable searches and seizures" and by requiring search warrants to be based on "probable cause." View source
As of October 2014, it remains unclear whether the extended use of GPS technology to track suspects without a warrant violates their Fourth Amendment rights.
Supreme Court
In January 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement must obtain a warrant before physically attaching a GPS tracking device to a suspect's vehicle. The decision (United States v. Antoine Jones) was based on a narrow application of the Fourth Amendment, since device installation involves physical intrusion on a suspect's vehicle. The Supreme Court did not resolve the broader issue of whether the Fourth Amendment protects geolocation privacy rights.
In a separate case decided in June 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that police need a warrant before searching the contents of a suspect's cell phone. The opinion (Riley v. California) specifically discusses the location history stored inside a phone (often collected automatically via GPS) as an example of personal information deserving protection from unwarranted disclosure. View PDF
Lower Courts
A number of other federal and state courts have ruled on the use of GPS-based vehicle surveillance by law enforcement, both before and after the 2012 Supreme Court decision. However, several of the lower court opinions are in conflict, so the Supreme Court may need to revisit this topic in the future.
Revelant decisions issued after United States v. Jones include:
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New
United States v. Katzin (No. 12-2548)
Oct 2014: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, upon rehearing the case, ruled as admissible GPS evidence collected without a warrant prior to the 2012 Supreme Court ruling. View PDF -
Vacated
United States v. Katzin (No. 12-2548)
Oct 2013: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that law enforcement must have a warrant to use GPS-based vehicle trackers. But the court later vacated its ruling and agreed to rehear the case. View PDF -
Commonwealth v. Rousseau & Dreslinski (SJC-11227, SJC-11228)
June 2013: The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that vehicle occupants have legal standing under federal and state law to challenge the sufficiency of warrants that authorize GPS-based vehicle surveillance. Look up opinion at massreports.com -
United States v. Skinner (No. 09-6497)
Aug 2012: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that law enforcement did not violate a suspect's Fourth Amendment rights by tracking his movements on public roads in real time using his cell phone's GPS capability after obtaining a federal judge's authority to do so. View PDF -
United States v. Pineda-Moreno (No. 08-30385)
Aug 2012: The Supreme Court ordered this case to be reconsidered in light of the Jones decision. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reaffirmed its 2010 ruling that installing a GPS tracker on a vehicle parked in the defendant's driveway without a warrant did not violate his Fourth Amendment rights. View PDF
Congressional Legislation
Several U.S. states and non-U.S. jurisdictions have enacted laws establishing personal location privacy rights. However, current U.S. statute at the federal level does not provide clear protection of geolocation information.
Members of Congress have proposed legislation to prevent misuse of such information by law enforcement, companies, and individuals. These include the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act ("GPS Act"), the Online Communications and Geolocation Protection Act, and the Location Privacy Protection Act.
As of October 2014, none of these bills has been enacted into law.
Learn more about the bills
Federal Policies
Executive branch policies addressing GPS-related privacy issues are mostly decentralized across federal agencies. The following list of known, publicly available policies is a work in progress and not comprehensive.
