N.J. Supreme Court: Police Need Warrant for Your Cellphone Data

If you're in New Jersey, it has a just become a lot tougher for cops to get their hands on your cellphone location information.

In a landmark decision (.PDF) that seems to follow a rising tide towards more digital privacy protections, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that local law-enforcement needs a warrant to get their hands on a suspect's cellphone location data. This is the first time a state Supreme Court has recognized a Fourth Amendment protection of cellphone location data

"Disclosure of cell-phone location information [...] can reveal a great deal of personal information about an individual," the ruling said. "With increasing accuracy, cell phones can now trace our daily movements and disclose not only where individuals are located at a point in time but also which shops, doctors, religious services, and political events they go to, and with whom they choose to associate."