14 DAY TRIAL // California Supreme Court's ruling to allow the search of arestees' cell phones without the need of a warrant could drive more people to adopt mobile encryption solutions.
On Monday, the court decided 5 to 2 that police officers are entitled to examine the mobile devices of arrested individuals, because they loose the privacy right to items in their possession when they are taken into custody.
"This loss of privacy allows police not only to seize anything of importance they find on the arrestee's body ... but also to open and examine what they find," the court said, citing U.S. Supreme Court precedents.
The precedents date back to the 1970s and apply to the examination of clothing items and cigarette packs seized from individuals during their arrest.
However, as one can easily imagine, a cell phone is much more than a cigarette pack. It can contain personal emails, contacts lists, pictures, messages, browsing history and other data that can reveal a lot about its owner.
According to The San Francisco Chronicle, Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, one of the two judges who opposed the decision, expressed concern about police being able to "rummage at leisure through the wealth of personal and business information that can be carried on a mobile phone or handheld computer merely because the device was taken from an arrestee's person."
This ruling also conflicts with the decisions of other courts. In 2007, the San Francisco District Court ruled that police violated a drug suspect's privacy rights by searching their cell phone without a warrant. The Ohio Supreme Court took a similar decision in December 2009.
The new development might convince the U.S. Supreme Court to examine the issue, but until that happens it's probably safer for privacy-conscious people to use a mobile data encryption solution and password protect their cell phones.