Police can no longer use cell phone towers to track criminal suspects without a warrant. Image: Shutterstock
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Indeed, the decision alone is a huge privacy win, but Sentelle's strong language supporting cell phone users' privacy rights is perhaps the most important part of the opinion. Sentelle pushed back against several of the federal government's arguments, including one that suggested that, because cell phone location data based on a caller's closest cell tower isn't precise, it should be readily collectable."The United States further argues that cell site location information is less protected than GPS data because it is less precise. We are not sure why this should be significant."
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