The Minnesota Supreme Court, in a landmark case, handed down a decision ruling that under the Minnesota Constitution individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their location data collected by third parties such as Google.
In the case of Contreras-Sanchez v. State of Minnesota, law enforcement utilized location data from Google to identify individuals involved in a murder case. They obtained this information through a geofence warrant, which is a warrant that allows law enforcement to obtain information from tech companies regarding their user’s location within certain geographic locations during a specific time-period. Through this process, law enforcement identified Contreras-Sanchez as a suspect and charged him with second degree murder. Prior to trial, Contreras-Sanchez moved to suppress the location data, arguing that geofence warrants were unconstitutional. Ultimately, the case landed before the Minnesota Supreme Court to determine the constitutionality of geofence warrants.
The Minnesota Supreme Court ultimately ruled that geofence warrants are constitutional and that under the Minnesota Constitution, there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in the location data stored by third parties—in this case, Google. The court reached this conclusion by focusing on the nature of a user’s private information that could be revealed through access to such data. The court determined that sensitive information, such as religious beliefs, political views, sexual associations, or professional affiliations are protected under the Minnesota Constitution.
This court ruling provides users of tech products with a further degree of privacy protection, requiring law enforcement to obtain a warrant to access this information and the warrant must provide, with specific particularity, the time and place where they will obtain the data. The Court interpreted Article 1, Section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution as providing greater privacy protection than the protections in the 4th Amendment under the U.S. Constitution.