California state legislature approves Location Privacy Act
California's state legislature passed the Location Privacy Act of 2012 (SB-1434) on Wednesday, which would make it mandatory for law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before gathering any GPS or other location-tracking data that a suspect's cell phone might be sending back to its carrier.
The act, sponsored by State Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), and co-sponsored by the ACLU of California and the EFF, passed with strong support by both parties. It now needs to be signed by California's governor to be put into law. But the bill isn't necessarily a straight-shot to penal code glory: the EFF points out that Governor Jerry Brown vetoed California's last attempt at enforcing stricter privacy rules in 2011, when he killed a bill that would have prevented police from searching the phones of apprehended suspects without a warrant.
