From documenting events and interviewing sources to storing important files, phones have become essential tools for activists and journalists. Considering their importance, it’s no surprise that law enforcement is often interested in your device and its content. As losing access to your phone can expose your sources and classified material, understanding your rights is crucial for protecting your privacy and the people you are in touch with.
Can the police take your phone without a warrant? In this article, we’ll explain what law enforcement can and can’t do and discuss how you can protect your rights.
Is the Police Allowed To Take Your Phone Without a Warrant?
In the United States, the police generally aren’t allowed to take your phone without a warrant.
This protection is guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment, which clearly defines limits on government intrusions on people’s lives, including their belongings. Per the Fourth Amendment, unreasonable searches and seizures are prohibited; the police can request the issuance of a warrant, but only if there’s probable cause.
Are There Any Exceptions?
There are certain situations in which the police have every right to take your phone without a warrant. Here’s when that can happen:
- You’ve given your consent: Law enforcement can seize your phone if you’ve given them your explicit consent or voluntarily hand over your phone.
- You’ve been arrested: The police can take your phone (and other personal belongings) during a lawful arrest.
- Your phone is considered evidence: If the police believe your phone contains evidence associated with a crime, they can seize it.
In addition to these, the U.S. law allows warrantless phone seizures in exigent circumstances, which are typically related to preventing one of the following:
- Fleeing of a suspect
- Physical harm
- Evidence destruction
- Threats to life
- Ongoing crime
You should also keep in mind the so-called plain view doctrine. This legal principle enables law enforcement to seize evidence without a warrant as long as it’s immediately apparent (in plain view). The U.S. law doesn’t offer clear insight into how the plain view doctrine applies to mobile devices, but there have been several instances of lower courts ruling that phone notifications visible on the screen represent valid evidence even without a warrant.
Therefore, if you receive a message or a call that appears on the screen that seems connected to a crime, the police officer could seize your phone and use the notification as evidence.
Understanding the Difference Between Device Seizures and Searches
A device seizure involves the confiscation of a phone, while a search involves accessing the phone’s content, and different rules apply to each. For example, law enforcement can obtain a warrant to take your device, but they’ll need another one to go through it.
Likewise, in a warrantless device seizure (for instance, during an arrest), the police don’t have legal rights to access your phone’s content (although exceptions can apply in certain situations).
What Happens if the Police Take Your Phone Without a Warrant?
If the police took your phone without a warrant, and no exception applies, your Fourth Amendment rights were likely violated. You should contact a lawyer as soon as possible and explain what happened, so that they can file a motion to suppress evidence and return the property.
To decide on the motion, the court will require evidence on any factual issue. Work with your lawyer to document the incident in detail, focusing on information such as:
- Date, time, and location of the incident
- Names and badge numbers of the police officers who took your phone
- The reason given for taking your phone (if any)
If the police seized your phone without a warrant but with probable cause, they can hold onto it for as long as necessary; the law doesn’t define a period after which the phone must be returned to you. For example, if the phone serves as evidence, the police may retain it throughout the entire investigation.
Note that while the police can keep your phone, they can’t access it unless they obtain a search warrant.
Can the Police Go Through Your Phone Without a Warrant?
The police can’t go through your phone without a warrant, just like they can’t come into your house or search your other personal belongings. To obtain a search warrant, the police must:
- Show that there’s a legitimate reason for searching your phone (such as your potential involvement in a crime)
- Define specific timelines of interest
- Identify the types of data they are interested in (such as photos or documents)
- Indicate where they expect to find this data (such as messages or social media applications)
These requirements highlight that search warrants have limits. Even with a warrant, law enforcement doesn’t have the right to search beyond the scope defined in the document.
Do Any Exceptions Apply?
There are a few exceptions when the police can search your phone without a warrant:
Exception | Explanation |
Consent | If the police ask you to search your phone, and you agree, they don’t have to wait for a warrant to go through it. What’s more, your consent is enough to perform a so-called “phone dump” and extract all data from your phone. |
Exigent circumstances | If the police deem searching your phone is urgent, they can do so without a warrant. These circumstances can involve preventing harm to someone’s life or chasing a suspect. |
Border searches | U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials can conduct warrantless searches of individuals and their belongings without cause or suspicion. This is the “border search exception” to the Fourth Amendment. |
Parole or probation | Depending on the jurisdiction, law enforcement can perform a warrantless device search if the owner is on parole or probation. |
Can the Police Force You To Unlock Your Phone Without a Warrant?
If you’re detained by the police and asked to unlock your phone, you don’t have to comply unless there’s a warrant. The Fourth and Fifth Amendments protect you from unreasonable searches and seizures and self-incrimination, so you have the right to remain silent and not obey the officer’s request.
Note that there have been instances where the police have unlocked people’s mobile devices if biometric authentication was enabled. Courts remain divided on whether biometric unlocking constitutes a violation of the Fifth Amendment; some argue that this isn’t a violation since unlocking a phone with a fingerprint or facial features doesn’t require revealing any knowledge.
Until U.S. courts take a clear stand regarding this issue, it’s best to be on the safe side and use a passcode or a pattern to protect your device. If law enforcement asks you to enter the passcode or pattern, you have every right to refuse if you’re not presented with a warrant.
Note that if you voluntarily comply with the request to unlock your phone, the police can go through it and use the information against you or other people, even if there’s no warrant. Therefore, don’t give the police your phone; instead, politely state that you don’t consent to a search or seizure and, if necessary, reach out to your lawyer.
It’s worth noting that the protection against unreasonable searches and seizures applies to unlocked devices as well; the police need a warrant to go through any phone, unlocked or not.
How To Protect Your Digital Privacy and Information on Your Phone: 3 Essential Tips
Whether you want to protect your device from the police or malicious actors trying to access your device and its content, these three tips can help you improve your phone’s privacy and security:
- Carefully choose the device lock method
- Encrypt and back up your data
- Rely on a privacy-first mobile carrier
1. Carefully Choose the Device Lock Method
If you often attend protests or other mass events and there’s a chance you’ll be detained by the police, it’s best to disable biometric authentication. Since the law remains unclear on whether police officers can force you to unlock your phone using a fingerprint or facial feature, a safer option is to use a password or pattern. Below are a few tips to make your password or pattern stronger:
- Pay attention to length and complexity: Simple passwords and patterns are easy to guess. Use intricate patterns or long passwords instead.
- Don’t use personal information for inspiration: A pattern in the shape of the letter M if your name is Michael is a bad idea, and the same logic applies to passwords with your birthday. Random characters and patterns are the safest option.
Whatever device lock method you choose, it’s a good idea to disable lock screen notifications and prevent potentially compromising yourself or others due to the plain view doctrine.
2. Encrypt & Back up Your Data
Encryption protects your data from cyberattacks and intrusion; it ensures third parties can’t access or read the information. Most modern smartphones are encrypted by default, but if you’re using an older device, adjust your encryption settings to enhance data security and prevent leaks.
Data backups are crucial for preserving essential information. If your device is lost, stolen, or damaged, having backups provides peace of mind and helps you resume your work where you left off. Whether you’re using external hard drives or cloud backups, ensure that the method is reliable and secure.
3. Rely on a Privacy-First Mobile Carrier
Malicious actors often exploit carrier vulnerabilities to access your device, plant malware or spyware, and steal your information. Poor network infrastructure and data collection, storage, and sharing policies practically leave the door open for skilled hackers to access your information and intercept your communication.
A privacy-first mobile carrier, such as Cape, ensures this doesn’t happen. We reinvented the mobile privacy and security landscape with:
- Our own brand-new infrastructure
- Strict and fully transparent data collection, storage, and sharing policies
- A feature set focusing on data protection and defence against threats such as SIM swapping, SS7 attacks, and IMSI catchers
Can Cape Safeguard Against Law Enforcement or Government Data Requests?
We respect law enforcement’s role in the society and comply with all legitimate requests while taking every reasonable step to protect you from data misuse or overreach. We safeguard your privacy by limiting what can be accessed in the first place—you can find more details in our privacy policy.
As a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), Cape has to comply with legitimate requests for subscriber information made under regulations such as the federal Stored Communications Act. However, since we retain only the minimum subscriber data necessary to provide a service, the information we can share under such requests is inherently limited.
Additionally, whenever the law allows, we notify the subscriber of such requests, which gives them the chance to review and challenge the request. If the law or court order prohibits us from notifying the subscriber, we review the request carefully and push back if it’s too broad or exceeds what can be lawfully requested.
To date, Cape has not received any government request that included a nondisclosure requirement.
You can check out Cape’s free private and secure cellular service program for journalists or activists and apply to see if you’re eligible.
Cape: The Carrier Built for Security, Convenience, and Peace of Mind
Cape is a privacy-first mobile carrier designed to keep your communications safe from surveillance and data misuse. Unlike legacy providers, we don’t harvest your information; our network is built to ensure most data never leaves your device in the first place.
We achieve this through a layered approach that combines advanced encryption, modern protocols, and network-level safeguards:
Cape runs its own mobile core in the cloud, replacing the outdated legacy infrastructure of traditional carriers. All traffic is routed through Cape’s secure network, making your domestic and international communications far more resistant to interception and attack.
Traditional carriers use outdated authentication methods that leave you vulnerable to risks like SIM swaps. Instead of weak password-based logins, Cape secures your account with asymmetric cryptography.
Your private key stays on your device and is represented by a 24-word recovery phrase, required for any major account changes. Because Cape employees cannot access it, only you can authorize actions like SIM ports, removing one of the most common attack vectors.
Cape’s proprietary signaling proxy filters network requests in real time, rejecting suspicious activity and blocking attempts at location tracking, call or SMS interception, and identifier extraction.
When you pay for Cape, we don’t collect your name or billing address. Instead, Stripe tokenizes your payment details so they’re never stored by Cape or tied to your account.
Voicemails, including the content and critical metadata, are encrypted and can only be decrypted with the private key stored on your device.
Traditional carriers demand blind trust and collect vast amounts of personal data from the moment you subscribe. Cape flips the model, letting you sign up anonymously and protecting your communications with built-in security, so your data stays private—even from us.
Get Cape To Access Unlimited Data, Peak Network Performance
Your $99/month Cape subscription comes with unlimited calls and SMS, 4G/5G data, and free international roaming (for eligible devices and countries).
The service is available for eSIM-enabled devices.
You can sign up for Cape using our anonymous onboarding process here.
To extend protection beyond the network, Cape partners with Proton. Subscribers can get Proton Unlimited or Proton VPN Plus for only $1 for six months.
