The Honorable Gina Raimondo 

Governor of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations 

82 Smith Street 

Providence, R.I. 02908 

Nicole Alexander-Scott, MD, MPH 

Director, Rhode Island Department of Health 

3 Capitol Hill 

Providence, RI 02908 

Via electronic mail and hand delivery 

Dear Governor Raimondo and Director Alexander-Scott, 

Thank you for your leadership and hard work responding to the COVID-19 crisis. Rest assured that Rhode Islanders appreciate your steady guidance. 

We read with much interest the WPRl.com story "To reopen the economy, RI may try to track you and the people you know."¹

Since this story aired Tuesday, April 7, 2020, many Rhode Islanders have expressed significant apprehension about the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) and its agents tracking their cellular phone location data without consent. Many believe it to be an extreme breach of their personal liberties and we wholeheartedly concur. 
 

Such an initiative raises profound privacy, civil liberty and legal concerns, and will cause Rhode Islanders to lose trust in further COVID-19 response efforts -potentially undoing the progress made thus far. 

Our United States Supreme Court recognized the deeply personal nature of cellular phone 

location data when it decided that law enforcement must get a judicial warrant to access this 

information: "The time-stamped data provides an intimate window into a person's life, revealing not only his particular movements, but through them his familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations. These location records hold/or many Americans the privacies of life." Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S._, 38 (2018). 
 

Cognizant of our responsibility to protect Rhode Islanders' privacy in this digital age, in 2016 

(two years before Carpenter) the General Assembly enacted, and Governor Raimondo you 

signed into law, a broad prohibition against warrantless access to electronic device location data by State agents. "No agent of the state or any political subdivision of the state shall obtain 

location information without a warrant unless a warrant requirement exception applies. " 

R.I.G.L. § 12-31-2. Simply put: it is unlawful for RIDOH and its contractors to acquire

personally-identifiable cellular location data without user-consent or a judicial warrant, even

during this COVID-19 crisis. Further, it is clear that none of the warrant legal exemptions apply in this situation.
 

Legalities aside, an involuntary cellular phone tracking initiative will likely undermine our 

efforts to combat the COVID-19 crisis. Every major crisis has its own unique challenges, but 

success always hinges on one essential factor -the trust of the People in their leaders. In this 

crisis, public trust in government fosters the necessary voluntary compliance with orders and 

recommendations. Tracking all Rhode Islanders like they are parolees cuts against the very fabric of individual privacy in our free society and risks tearing down that trust, thus undermining the public's willingness to voluntarily comply with further COVID-19 response efforts. 
 

As a matter of law, as a matter of fundamental notions of privacy and as a matter of thoughtful 

long-term policy, we implore you not to attempt to track personally-identifiable cellular phone 

location data, absent specific user consent or a judicial warrant. We also ask you to immediately make a public statement clarifying this policy to ease the growing distrust we are hearing from our constituents. 

Sincerely, 

Rhode Island House Minority Caucus:

Rhode Island Senate Minority Caucus:

1. https://www.wpri.com/target-12/to-reopen-the-economy-ri-may-try-to-track-you-and-the­

people-you-know/