Looking at a phone's lock screen also requires a warrant, judge rules

Eye surveillance security — Law enforcement needs a warrant to check a person’s lock screen, a judge said.
Angela Lang / CNET

U.S. law enforcement agencies press a button to access a phone’s lock screen qualifies as a search and requires an arrest warranta judge decided this week. The verdict was previously reported by Ars Technica.

The decision was part of a case in which Washington State’s Joseph Sam was arrested last year and charged with robbery and assault. During his arrest, an officer reportedly pressed his phone’s on / off switch and called up the lock screen.

In February, the FBI turned on Sam’s phone to take a picture of the lock screen. His lawyer submitted a request that the evidence should not have been collected without a warrant.

Judge John Coughenour of the US District Court in Seattle ruled in favor of this argument, stating that the FBI’s actions violated Sam’s rights to the fourth amendment. He found that turning on Sam’s phone to take a picture of the lock screen is considered a “search” for the change. Since the FBI had no arrest warrant, he considered the act unconstitutional.

When it came to the problem that the police were looking at Sam’s phone, the judge wrote that in certain cases, they were allowed to search without a warrant, and viewing the lock screen might have been okay because it was one of the two incidents a lawful arrest or as part of the police’s effort to inventory Sam’s “personal belongings.” Coughenour asked for clarification on the behavior of the police to determine if their search fell into these categories.

Prosecutors said Sam shouldn’t have expected privacy on his lock screen, as everyone sees it when he tries to access a phone. Coughenour said it didn’t matter if the lock screen was private.

“If the government receives evidence of physical intrusion into a constitutionally protected area – as the FBI did here – it is” unnecessary to check “whether the government has also violated the defendant’s reasonable expectations of privacy,” he wrote Judge.

Courts previously found that law enforcement I can’t force anyone to unlock a phone with their face, fingerprint or other biometric features.