“My Phone is my Castle” – Legal Implications for the Search and Seizure of Cell Phones by Law Enforcement Officials in the U. S. A. and Germany

• Henning Hofmann
• Alexander Seidl
• Ferdinand Wessels

Cell phones have become the leading technical device regarding mobile communication and interoperability. Smartphones have replaced regular cell phones with many advanced features going far beyond traditional functionalities like making phone calls and sending text messages. The ability to surf the Internet over wireless networks and numerous functionalities available through a sheer endless number of applications have cleared the way for producing almost unlimited amounts of user data. The information stored on an average smartphone will therefore often include detailed and sensitive material about the user’s private life; cell phones have become – in the words of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. – “such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy”.