# Privacy on the Map (Part 2): Progress, Pitfalls, and the Fight for Enforceable Location Data Protections

DevFeed: [Privacy on the Map (Part 2): Progress, Pitfalls, and the Fight for Enforceable Location Data Protections](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/privacy-on-the-map-part-2-progress-pitfalls-and-the-fight-for-enforceable-location-data-protections-50650.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/08/privacy-map-part-2-progress-pitfalls-and-fight-enforceable-location-data>)

Author: Rindala Alajaji

Published: 2026-08-31T16:49:34Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Deeplinks](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/deeplinks.md>)

Topics: [geofencing](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/geofencing.md>), [data](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/data.md>), [Protection](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/protection.md>), [standard](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/standard.md>)

Tags: [data](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data.md>), [geofencing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/geofencing.md>), [geolocation](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/geolocation.md>), [government](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/government.md>), [law](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/law.md>), [law-enforcement](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/law-enforcement.md>), [location](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/location.md>), [locational-privacy](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/locational-privacy.md>), [privacy](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/privacy.md>), [standards](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/standards.md>), [surveillance](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/surveillance.md>), [tracking](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tracking.md>)

## AI overview

This article examines progress and gaps in U.S. protections against commercial location tracking. It discusses geofence warrants, data brokers that harvest and sell geolocation data, and the need for stronger state and federal privacy laws.

## Source excerpt

Regulating commercial location tracking has reached a turning point. Last year, we published our rubric for what comprehensive and protective location privacy laws should look like, outlining the baseline standards states should meet to shield individuals from pervasive location surveillance. Since then, state lawmakers across the country have begun responding to calls like these, with Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, and Virginia enacting new consumer privacy restraints on an industry that profits off our physical movements. Yet, even as these states move the ball forward to restrict location tracking, most of their laws leave significant gaps that still must be filled. Other states - and Congress - need to get into the game, too, and ensure protection of everyone. Why Location Privacy Is Important Imagine spending a couple of hours in a coffee shop, a friend's house, or a healthcare clinic, only to discover yourself under police investigation because your cell phone's location data exposed your presence there. This is the reality of geofence warrants for location data, the controversial surveillance technique recently scrutinized by the U.S. Supreme Court in Chatrie v. United States. Through geofencing, tech companies and law enforcement can map everyone who was present within a specific area over a certain window of time, inverting standard constitutional protections by turning every innocent bystander into a potential suspect. While the Supreme Court's ruling in Chatrie established that accessing location data via geofencing constitutes a Fourth Amendment search requiring constitutional protections, law enforcement demands via these warrants are only part of the problem. That same geolocation tracking is used by commercial data brokers operating in a largely unregulated market. These brokers regularly harvest, aggregate, and sell physical location data to anyone with a credit card (including government agencies, which are among their regular clients).