Riley v. California

The Court held that police generally need a warrant to search a cell phone seized during an arrest.

Overview

Officers searched arrestees' phones incident to arrest, uncovering photos and contacts used as evidence. Chief Justice Roberts, for a unanimous Court, held that modern smartphones contain the privacies of life, digital dossiers exceeding anything a person could physically carry before, so a search requires a warrant absent exigent circumstances. Officer safety and evidence destruction concerns did not justify a categorical exception. Riley brought the Fourth Amendment into the digital age, followed by Carpenter's protection of location data, and stands for full constitutional protection of digital data.