Your Phone
Riley v. California — a phone needs a warrant
Police can take your phone off you during an arrest. Reading what is on it is a separate act and it needs a warrant. The Supreme Court drew that line specifically because a phone holds more of a person's life than a house search ever did.
Who handles this in Ohio: Ohio State Bar Association lawyer referral; and legal aid programs and the state offices, listed in the Ohio directory.
- Consenting to a look through your phone waives the warrant requirement entirely. You do not have to consent.
- There is no obligation to volunteer your passcode.
- Whether a court can order you to unlock with a face or a fingerprint, as opposed to a passcode, is unsettled and has split courts around the country.
- A warrant for a phone still has to say what it is looking for. A warrant for one thing is not a license to read everything.
“I do not consent to a search of my phone.”
Riley is about a search incident to arrest. It does not answer a consent search, a warrant already issued for the phone itself, a border crossing, or what a provider hands over about an account without anybody touching the device. Those are separate questions with separate law.
Sources for this section (4)
- Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014) — Police need a warrant to search a phone seized during an arrest
- U.S. Const. amend. IV — Searches and seizures
- U.S. Const. amend. V — Rights in criminal cases, self incrimination
- Ohio Const. art. I, § 14 — Search warrants and general warrants
Legal information, not legal advice. Verified as of September 2026. Applying it to a particular situation is the work of a licensed Ohio attorney.