Geolocation Tracking Ban
Status: Introduced, referred to committee
Bill Sponsor: Rep. Dan Quart and Sen. Zellnor Myrie
S.T.O.P. is a lead advocate for the enactment of Assembly Bill A84 and Senate Bill S296, a geolocation surveillance ban, which would prevent large-scale location tracking, with or without a warrant. Law enforcement agencies in New York have been exploiting a loophole in current laws, convincing courts to grant “reverse location” search warrants. Unlike normal search warrants, which authorize the search of a person suspected of a crime, reverse location search warrants order technology companies to turn over the data of all users in a certain geographic area at a certain time. This bill would prohibit courts from issuing reverse search warrants and law enforcement agencies from seeking them. It is more necessary now than ever before, as governments use COVID-19 to justify previously unthinkable surveillance regimes. To that end, this law is exempt from the Governor’s newly-granted power to suspend laws during perceived emergencies—recognizing that New Yorkers’ core constitutional rights cannot be suspended at the government’s whim.