This Ruling Protects Your Privacy on Social Media

When police seek access to information about people exercising their First Amendment rights, they must meet a much higher legal standard to justify that intrusion. That’s what a court ruled in a case where the UC Santa Barbara Police Department attempted to force Instagram to surrender detailed records associated with two activist Instagram accounts. The Court’s decision, which follows the analysis in our brief, affirms clear limits on the government’s power to surveil people under US and California law. This is an important victory for the privacy and free speech rights of people who use social media to organize, speak out, and call for change. These protections are especially important on college campuses, where students should be able to express themselves in an environment that values learning and critical thinking.  

California has a strong history of defending these rights. In 1975, the Supreme Court of California heard White v. Davis, a case in which police officers posing as students compiled detailed dossiers about professors and students at the University of California Los Angeles. As the Supreme Court of California wrote, there was a “substantial probability that . . . covert police surveillance will chill the exercise of First Amendment rights.” 

The same principles apply in Santa Barbara today. When the police seek records from a social-media platform that reveal people’s interactions with activist content—including direct messages, likes, comments, photographs, and geolocations—this surveillance directly targets protected speech. Ensuring constitutional protections are respected is, in the words of the California Supreme Court, “nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools.” These institutions, especially in California, must continue to support the free speech rights of students. 

California has additional privacy protections under the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act. This law protects all electronic information held by service providers about people and requires the government to obtain a detailed warrant before forcing a company to surrender any information. If the government fails to follow the rules, people can challenge those warrants in court. That’s exactly what people targeted by the warrant in Santa Barbara did. And they won. 

If you receive a notice from an online service provider (like Facebook, Instagram, Google, or another social media platform) indicating that the government has sought access to your information, please contact our intake line (English and Español) at (415) 621-2488 or via our intake form.