Google's change in location data handling impacts geofence warrants

Google announced important changes to the way it handles users' location history data, making it difficult to respond to geofence warrants. Geofence warrants require a provider to search its entire user location data to identify all users in a geographic area during a specified time. These warrants violate the Fourth Amendment as they inevitably sweep up people unrelated to the crime. Google's changes include storing data on the user's device, deleting data after three months, and automatic encryption when backed up to the cloud.