The US Supreme Court has ruled police cannot search the digital contents of mobile phones of those arrested without a warrant.
The unanimous decision is a win for privacy advocates that argued searching mobiles was an unreasonable intrusion.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his opinion that mobiles "hold for many Americans the privacies of life".
The high court had weighed appeals by two people convicted based on evidence found on their phones.
Both were convicted of crimes for which they were not initially arrested.
Under the fourth amendment to the US constitution, police and other government officials generally need to obtain a warrant from a judge before they can conduct a search.
A warrant requires evidence that a crime has been committed by the suspect.
Justice Roberts wrote in his ruling for the court that constitutional protection applied to the contents of mobiles, as they "differ in both a quantitative and qualitative sense from other objects that might be carried on an arrestee's person".
bbc.com
The unanimous decision is a win for privacy advocates that argued searching mobiles was an unreasonable intrusion.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his opinion that mobiles "hold for many Americans the privacies of life".
The high court had weighed appeals by two people convicted based on evidence found on their phones.
Both were convicted of crimes for which they were not initially arrested.
Under the fourth amendment to the US constitution, police and other government officials generally need to obtain a warrant from a judge before they can conduct a search.
A warrant requires evidence that a crime has been committed by the suspect.
Justice Roberts wrote in his ruling for the court that constitutional protection applied to the contents of mobiles, as they "differ in both a quantitative and qualitative sense from other objects that might be carried on an arrestee's person".
bbc.com
