A geofence warrant typo cast a location dragnet spanning two miles over San Francisco

ACLU of Northern California reviewed thousands of San Francisco geofence warrants and found significant overreach, including an error that expanded one warrant to nearly two miles, sweeping in data from private homes, places of worship, hotels, banks, and businesses unrelated to the alleged crimes. The report underscores disproportionate impacts on immigrant-heavy neighborhoods, ongoing legal uncertainty under the Fourth Amendment, and Google’s shift to on-device location storage that could curtail compliance with geofence warrants.