How Location Data Is Becoming Critical Evidence in Modern Disputes
In the 2019 Virginia bank robbery case that became United States v. Chatrie, federal investigators had no eyewitness identification, no useful surveillance footage, and no recoverable fingerprints. What they had was a polygon drawn on a map and a request to Google for every Android device that crossed it during a 60-minute window. That single geofence query produced the suspect. Six years later, on April 30, 2025, the Fourth Circuit sat en banc to decide whether the technique itself was constitutional.