With a 12-3 vote, 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that the location data you share with a third-party is not protected by the Fourth Amendment and can be accessed by law enforcement without a search warrant.
Phandroid reports that the court made its ruling because the location information is willingly granted to third parties and “no reasonable expectation of privacy” should be assumed by the user.
Without a warrant, law enforcement agencies can now request a person’s location data from your service provider, Google, Facebook, Microsoft or any other company that may be tracking your location within its app without first providing sufficient evidence to a judge to show that you may be implicit to a crime.
The 5th, 6th, and 11th Circuit Court of Appeals have already made the same ruling. With agreement by the lower courts, it seems unlikely that the Supreme Court will take up the issue any time soon.