Published on 9/8/2026, 12:00:00 AM
Can Police Search Your Phone or Make You Unlock It in Maryland?
Your phone may contain text messages, photos, call records, internet searches, location history, app activity, and other deeply personal information. That does not mean Maryland police can automatically examine everything on it.
The key distinction is between taking possession of the phone and searching the digital information stored on it. Police may sometimes seize and hold a phone without immediately obtaining a warrant. Accessing its contents is a separate constitutional question.
Maryland decisions including Moats v. State, 455 Md. 682 (2017), and State v. Zadeh, 468 Md. 124 (2020), show why every stage of a phone investigation matters. Two United States Supreme Court decisions, Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014), and Chatrie v. United States, No. 25-112 (June 29, 2026), explain why digital contents and cell phone location records receive substantial Fourth Amendment protection.
Seizing a Phone Is Not the Same as Searching It
A seizure occurs when police take control of your phone. A search occurs when they examine its digital contents.
This distinction was central to Moats. Police arrested the defendant on drug charges and seized the phone he was carrying. The Court of Appeals of Maryland held that police could seize and secure a phone found during a lawful arrest. They could also retain it for as long as reasonably necessary to seek a search warrant.
That did not give officers automatic authority to inspect the data. The court explained that, after physical safety concerns are addressed, police generally need a warrant before searching a phone’s digital contents.
The United States Supreme Court drew the same line in Riley. Officers may examine a phone’s physical features to make sure it does not conceal a weapon. They may also seize and secure the device while seeking a warrant. Those actions do not permit them to open messages, review photos, inspect call logs, or search other digital data.
The same distinction appeared in Zadeh. Police seized a phone from the suspect’s pocket and later obtained a warrant to search its contents. The later warrant did not cure the unlawful initial seizure. According to the court, when and how police obtain the phone matters.
Do Police Need a Warrant to Search a Phone in Maryland?
As a general rule, police must obtain a warrant before searching digital information on a phone.
In Riley, the Supreme Court held that police generally may not search digital information on a cell phone without a warrant merely because they seized it during a lawful arrest. The ordinary search-incident-to-arrest rule applies differently to a phone because digital data cannot be used as a weapon and because a phone can reveal vast amounts of private information.
The Fourth Amendment requires a warrant to be supported by probable cause and to particularly describe the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. Article 26 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights also rejects general warrants that fail to identify the relevant place or person with sufficient specificity.
A judge considering a phone search warrant examines the totality of the information in the supporting affidavit. The question is whether the affidavit establishes a fair probability that evidence of a crime will be found on that phone.
In Moats, the warrant affidavit described:
- The alleged criminal activity
- Statements from people involved in the investigation
- The defendant’s own admissions
- The officer’s training and investigative experience
- The officer’s belief that people involved in those crimes communicated through calls, texts, and emails
The court found a substantial basis for the judge to conclude that the phone probably contained evidence connected to the investigation.
Still, Moats cautioned that not every alleged crime supports a search of a suspect’s phone. The nature of the offense, the factual connection between the offense and the phone, and the officer’s demonstrated experience all matter.
A Search Warrant Must Have Limits
A warrant is not necessarily valid merely because it uses the words “cell phone.”
The Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement is intended to prevent broad exploratory searches. A warrant should identify what police may search for and where they may search.
The warrant in Moats authorized an examination of phone calls, text messages, phone numbers, photographs, emails, financial records, account information, external storage, and other digital information related to the investigated crimes. The majority upheld the search.
A concurring opinion raised a serious concern, however. The warrant did not limit the search to a particular date range. The concurrence warned that authorizing police to inspect every piece of data on a phone could resemble the general searches the Fourth Amendment was designed to prohibit. It suggested that a temporal limitation may be necessary to avoid an unnecessary invasion of privacy.
That concern is especially important because a phone may contain years of records unrelated to the alleged offense.
Geofence Warrants Must Also Satisfy the Fourth Amendment
Chatrie addressed a warrant that required Google to identify phones found within a virtual boundary near a bank robbery. The process began with anonymized location records, expanded the location information for selected devices, and eventually disclosed the identities of selected users.
The Supreme Court held that police conduct a Fourth Amendment search when they obtain a person’s Google Location History. That remained true even though police requested only two hours of data and obtained it from a third-party technology company.
The Court did not decide whether the particular geofence warrant was reasonable. It sent the case back for the Fourth Circuit to determine whether each stage was supported by probable cause and described with enough particularity. This means a geofence warrant is not automatically valid merely because a judge signed it. Its geographic area, time period, selection process, and the discretion left to officers may all matter.
What Exceptions May Allow a Warrantless Search or Seizure?
The Zadeh decision identified several recognized exceptions to the warrant requirement:
- Search incident to a lawful arrest
- Hot pursuit
- Plain view
- The automobile exception
- Stop and frisk
- Consent
- Exigent circumstances
Whether an exception applies depends on the specific facts. An exception that permits police to seize a physical phone does not necessarily authorize them to browse through its contents.
Search Incident to Arrest
After a lawful arrest, police may seize and secure a phone found on the person arrested. Moats held that they may retain it for a reasonable period while seeking a warrant, even if the person is released in the meantime.
The search-incident-to-arrest rule does not ordinarily authorize an immediate search of the phone’s digital contents. Without an exigency, police must wait for a warrant before examining the data.
Riley rejected the argument that officer safety or a general concern about evidence destruction justifies an automatic search of every arrested person’s phone. Once officers control the device, the person arrested cannot use its data as a weapon or personally delete information from it.
Exigent Circumstances
The materials identify exigency as a recognized exception. They also explain that a warrantless search of phone data may be possible when an exigency exists.
Riley explains that a case-specific emergency may justify immediate access. Examples discussed by the Court include an imminent attempt to remotely wipe evidence, a threat involving an explosive device, or an urgent effort to locate an abducted child. A court must examine whether the actual emergency made the warrantless search objectively reasonable.
A general possibility that a phone could lock, encrypt its data, or receive a remote-wipe command does not create an automatic exception. Riley noted that officers can secure a phone and may use targeted measures to prevent remote access while seeking a warrant.
Stop and Frisk and the “Plain Feel” Doctrine
An officer may conduct a limited protective pat-down when the officer reasonably believes a person is armed and dangerous. The purpose is officer safety, not a general search for evidence.
During a lawful frisk, the plain-feel doctrine may permit seizure of a weapon or another item whose incriminating character is immediately apparent. It does not authorize officers to manipulate an object or conduct a broader exploratory search.
In Zadeh, an officer felt a cell phone in the suspect’s pocket during a protective frisk. The officer knew it was a phone and did not believe it was a weapon. The Maryland court held that its incriminating nature was not immediately apparent from touch alone. Once the officer determined that the object was a phone rather than a weapon, the protective search should have ended.
Can a Warrant for a Car Authorize Seizure of a Phone in Your Pocket?
Not necessarily.
In Zadeh, police had a warrant to search a specific silver Jaguar. The warrant allowed them to search the vehicle for evidence of murder, including electronic equipment that stored data.
The court held that this authority covered the vehicle and qualifying items inside it. It did not authorize police to seize a phone from the driver’s pocket.
Probable cause tied to one location cannot simply be transferred to a person. A person does not lose the constitutional protection against a personal search merely by being present in a vehicle covered by a warrant.
If police have probable cause to believe a person or that person’s phone contains evidence, the proper course identified in Zadeh is to obtain an appropriate search or arrest warrant.
Can You Consent to a Phone Search?
Yes. Consent is a recognized exception to the warrant requirement.
In Zadeh, one person agreed to let a detective examine her phone to confirm a claimed call. She later consented to the detective taking two phones. This illustrates how consent may give police authority they would not otherwise possess without a warrant.
Consent should not be treated casually. Agreeing to show an officer a phone may allow the officer to observe call logs, contacts, messages, or other information within the scope of the permission given.
The provided cases do not define every limit of a consensual phone search. They do establish that consent is legally significant and can affect whether a warrant is required.
Can Police Make You Use Face ID, a Fingerprint, or a Passcode?
The supplied decisions do not decide whether police may compel a person to unlock a phone using:
- Face ID
- A fingerprint
- A typed passcode
- A pattern or other memorized credential
These cases address seizure, retention, search warrants, consent, phone records, and digital evidence. Riley discusses password protection and encryption, but it does not establish a Maryland rule distinguishing biometric unlocking from disclosure or entry of a passcode.
For that reason, no reliable conclusion about compelled unlocking can be drawn from these authorities alone. The legality of a demand to unlock a phone would require analysis of authority specifically addressing compelled access.
Consent remains relevant. Voluntarily using a face, fingerprint, or passcode to unlock a device for police may create a different issue from being compelled to do so.
What Happens to Your Phone After an Arrest?
If the arrest is lawful, police may:
- Take possession of a phone found on you.
- Secure the device.
- Hold it for a period reasonably necessary to request a search warrant.
- Search its contents after obtaining a valid warrant or establishing a recognized exception.
In Moats, the defendant was released from custody one day after his arrest, but police kept his phone. They obtained a search warrant three days after the arrest. The court held that the authority to retain the phone did not automatically end when the defendant was released.
That authority is not unlimited. Moats referred to retention for as long as reasonably necessary to seek a warrant and recognized that an unreasonable delay could present a different issue.
What Digital Evidence Can Police Seek?
A properly supported warrant may authorize police or a forensic examiner to search categories of digital evidence relevant to an investigation.
The cases discuss evidence including:
- Text messages
- Call records
- Stored phone numbers
- Emails
- Photos and videos
- Internet searches
- Financial records
- Account information
- External storage
- App communications
- Location history
- Historical cell-site information
In Moats, a forensic examination uncovered photos and a video that led to charges separate from the offenses initially under investigation.
In Zadeh, phone records and text messages were introduced to show communications between two suspects on the morning of a murder.
In State v. Galicia, 479 Md. 341 (2022), the prosecution presented Google records concerning internet searches and location tracking. It also introduced historical cell-site evidence and other digital records. The case shows that location data may come from accounts, apps, service providers, or phone records rather than only from the physical device.
Riley explains why these categories matter. A single phone can combine years of messages, photographs, videos, browsing history, calendars, financial information, app records, and location information. Taken together, those records can reveal far more than any single physical document.
The Court also recognized that information displayed on a phone may actually be stored in the cloud. Accessing a device can therefore expose remote records as well as files physically stored on the phone.
Location and App Data Can Be Complicated
Galicia involved a gap in Google Location History during a period that included the date of the alleged crime. A Google records custodian testified that a user could enable or disable location tracking by device or across an account.
The Maryland court held that the ability of a smartphone user to turn location tracking on or off was within the understanding of an average person. The witness did not need to be qualified as an expert merely to explain that users have control over that setting.
The court distinguished this simple explanation from a technical interpretation of raw call-detail records. Specialized analysis that translates unfamiliar data into conclusions about phone locations may require expert testimony.
A missing location entry also does not necessarily establish where a person was. In Galicia, the location record showed a gap. It did not itself provide the missing location.
Police Access to Google Location History Is a Search
Chatrie extends the analysis beyond data taken directly from a phone. Google’s Location History recorded a phone’s location about every two minutes by drawing from sources that included GPS information, nearby Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth beacons, cell sites, and IP address information.
The Supreme Court held that a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in those records. Police therefore conduct a Fourth Amendment search when they demand the information from Google.
The ruling did not depend on police obtaining a long history of someone’s movements. Two hours of Location History was enough. The Court rejected the idea that police receive a brief period in which they may obtain location data without Fourth Amendment scrutiny. Even a short record can reveal a visit to a private home, medical office, political gathering, criminal defense lawyer, or another sensitive place.
The fact that Google held the records did not eliminate the user’s privacy interest. The Court rejected the argument that using an app or enabling a service automatically allows the government to obtain the resulting private information without Fourth Amendment protection.
Chatrie also shows why geofence searches raise special concerns. Instead of requesting records for a known suspect, police may begin with everyone whose phone appeared near a place during a selected time. A valid warrant must still satisfy probable cause and particularity requirements at each step used to narrow that group and disclose identities.
Can Illegally Obtained Phone Evidence Be Suppressed?
A defendant may file a motion to suppress a phone and evidence obtained from it when police allegedly violated the Fourth Amendment or Article 26.
Suppression can apply to the physical phone, its contents, or evidence derived from an unconstitutional search or seizure.
Zadeh provides a direct example. The phone was unlawfully taken from the suspect’s pocket. Police later obtained a warrant for its contents, but the court held that the later warrant did not fix the original violation. Information obtained through later searches of a phone that police had no right to possess had to be suppressed.
The court described the phone as the fruit of an unlawful search and seizure.
A suppression court examines the facts developed at the suppression hearing. It decides whether police had a valid warrant, stayed within the warrant’s scope, or acted under a recognized exception. Appellate courts defer to supported factual findings but independently evaluate the constitutional questions.
Riley arose from suppression challenges to warrantless phone searches. In one of the consolidated cases, officers used a phone’s call log to identify a home and then obtained evidence from that location. The decision confirms that suppression may reach evidence derived from an unlawful phone search, not just data displayed on the device.
In Chatrie, the Supreme Court decided that obtaining Location History was a search but did not decide whether the evidence must be excluded. The Court left both the warrant’s validity and the possible good-faith exception for further consideration by the Fourth Circuit. A Fourth Amendment violation and suppression are related questions, but they are not always resolved in the same step.
The Bottom Line
Maryland police may sometimes take and hold your phone, particularly after a lawful arrest. That does not automatically let them search its digital contents.
A valid phone search generally requires:
- A warrant supported by probable cause
- A sufficiently particular description of the intended search
- Valid consent
- Or a recognized exception to the warrant requirement
Police must also have lawful authority to obtain the phone in the first place. A later warrant may not save evidence when the original seizure was unconstitutional.
Texts, photos, videos, searches, location history, call records, app data, cloud records, and account information can all become evidence. Riley establishes that an arrest does not create automatic authority to search this data. Chatrie establishes that Fourth Amendment protection can also apply when police obtain a short period of location data from a technology company.
If police obtained digital evidence unlawfully, a motion to suppress may determine whether the prosecution can use it in court.
