Kelsey Smith Act Would Give Police Access to Cell Phone Data Without Warrant

A Michigan House committee is debating a law that would give police access to cell phone location data without a warrant. (Photo by Robert S Donovan via Flickr Creative Commons)

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A law before the Michigan House Criminal Justice Committee would give law enforcement authorities the go-ahead to conduct warrantless cell phone searches in some emergency situations.

Sponsored by the committee’s chair, Northville Republican Rep. Kurt Heise, the Kelsey Smith Bill (House Bill 4006) would allow police to ask cellphone companies to provide the last known location of an individual phone without a warrant, The Lansing News/MLive reports.

“In an emergency situation, it is not always possible to find a judge to issue a search warrant or issue an order to obtain this information,” Heise said.

Authorities waited four days for a warrant to compel Kelsey Smith’s wireless provider to disclose her last known address after she was abducted from a Target parking lot in suburban Kansas City, KS, in 2007. Within an hour of receiving the information, authorities located her body. She had been raped and murdered.

Related:

• The Kelsey Smith Story: A Story of Heartache and Hope

Federal legislation exists and about a dozen states have passed Kelsey Smith acts. Heise’s bill is a reset after a similar proposal failed to make it to Gov. Rick Snyder’s desk in the last regular session of the Legislature. In its latest iteration, some lawmakers said privacy and economic concerns still exist.

Rep. Martin Howrylak, R-Troy, called for more specific privacy protections to guard against government intrusion and possible future use of the data in unrelated investigations, but Heise said those safeguards are already in place. Requests could only be made in an emergency situation that involves “the imminent risk of death or serious physical harm to a person with a wireless device,” the bill states.

Tell Us:

• Should police be able to obtain cell phone location data in emergency situations without a warrant?

“The legislative intent is that it’s an emergency use, one-time thing,” Heise said. “We don’t want to track people or anything like that.”

Rep. Peter Lucido, R-Shelby Township, wants more information about the cost of implementing the act. “Somebody has to pay the provider for that data,” he said.

The committee hasn’t voted yet on whether to move the bill forward for debate before the full House.

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