CA2: Officers using iPhone flashlight and camera to see through car window’s tinting did not violate any reasonable expectation of privacy.

Officers used their iPhone flashlight and camera to see through car window’s tinting, and this did not violate any reasonable expectation of privacy. Tinting the windows doesn’t create an objective expectation of privacy. United States v. Poller, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3932 (2d Cir. Feb. 20, 2025):

Poller contends that this case is different because his car windows were tinted, and the officers required the assistance of technology—namely, iPhone cameras—to see through those windows. We are unpersuaded. As discussed below, consistent with the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court and this Court, we hold that the officers did not violate Poller’s reasonable expectation of privacy by using iPhone cameras to observe the car’s interior through its tinted windows, and therefore did not conduct a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.

Poller first claims that because the tinted windows shielded the “inside of his car from the casual passerby,” he “establish[ed] an expectation of privacy.” Appellant’s Br. at 12. However, the inquiry does not turn on whether Poller’s employed safeguards would have sufficiently shielded the interior from the gaze of a mere casual observer. Instead, the Supreme Court has made clear that “[t]here is no legitimate expectation of privacy shielding that portion of the interior of an automobile which may be viewed from outside the vehicle by either inquisitive passersby or diligent police officers.” Brown, 460 U.S. at 740 (emphasis added) (internal citations omitted); cf. California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35, 40, 108 S. Ct. 1625, 100 L. Ed. 2d 30 (1988) (concluding that there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in garbage bags left at the curb in part because they are accessible to “scavengers” and “snoops”). Thus, in California v. Ciraolo, for example, the fact that the defendant “took normal precautions to maintain his privacy” by erecting a 10-foot fence around his backyard was insufficient to establish a reasonable expectation of privacy, in part because the fence might not shield the interior “from the eyes of a citizen or a policeman perched on top of a truck or a two-level bus.” 476 U.S. at 211 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see Florida v. Riley, 488 U.S. 445, 450, 109 S. Ct. 693, 102 L. Ed. 2d 835 (1989) (concluding that defendant “could not reasonably have expected the contents of his greenhouse to be immune from examination by an officer” from an aircraft above, even though he took precautions “against ground-level observation”). The pertinent question here, then, is whether the installation of tinted windows established a legitimate expectation of privacy from “all observations” of the interior of Poller’s car. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. at 207. It does not.

Whatever Poller’s subjective expectation of privacy may have been, his expectation that the installation of tinted windows shielded the car’s interior from all observations is not a reasonable one.