When assessing the facts of the case, the Court ruled that the installation of the GPS device on the defendant’s vehicle and its subsequent use in tracking the vehicle’s trajectory can be defined as a search. Hence, the government has invaded private property with the clear goal of obtaining information without formally inquiring about a right to do so.
Jones’ car has a personal “effect,” according to Justice Scalia, who wrote for the Court. As a result, putting a GPS to the car to acquire evidence was a search under the Fourth Amendment’s wording – “the right of the people to be secure in their effects.” Justice Scalia underlined that trespassing on an area designated in the Fourth Amendment’s language would have been regarded as a search at the time the Amendment was enacted.
Law enforcement can now track a person’s activities over lengthy periods of time in ways they never could before because of GPS technology. Such technology’s capacity for breaching an individual’s right to privacy should not be underestimated. Thus, the violation of one of the fundamental and constitutionally protected personal freedoms occurred in the aforementioned case.