Church Sues California County Over Alleged Covid-19 Geofencing

A Christian church and its pastor accused a California county of violating its congregants’ privacy and constitutional rights by illegally using a geofencing tool to track residents on church premises during the Covid-19 pandemic’s shelter-in-place order.

The operation had no boundaries, they alleged, enabling the county to track churchgoers in the prayer room and bathroom.

Lead pastor Mike McClure and Calvary Chapel San Jose filed a complaint against Santa Clara County and data company SafeGraph Tuesday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. They alleged that the government targeted the church with a surveillance operation over the course of a year that tracked unaware individuals by gathering their sensitive cell phone location data.

The complaint alleges the county and the company violated the Fourth Amendment protecting individuals’ privacy, as well as the free exercise and establishment clauses of the First Amendment. It also accuses the county of seeking “to punish Calvary for exercising their religious rights in violation of the County’s draconian orders.”

The allegations reflect the heated backlash that resulted from shelter-in-place orders—namely, the debate between government officials and religious groups, who said the policies infringed their right to exercise their faith practices. Medical professionals have said that shelter-in-place strategies are effective at mitigating the spread of Covid-19.

Calvary said its community was “vigorously opposed” to Santa Clara’s Covid-19 orders, the first adopted in the country. The complaint argues that the county now wrongfully seeks to collect “millions in fines” despite a 2021 US Supreme Court decision that ordered California to allow indoor worship services to resume.

Further, Calvary claims, the county worked with SafeGraph to target surveillance of churchgoers’ visit patterns amid ongoing state enforcement action against the church.

Unbeknownst to the public, the complaint alleges, SafeGraph put geofences around Calvary to catch congregants in the church parking lots, sanctuary, and school.

Geofences, which are created using mapping software and rely on real-time location data, construct “a virtual boundary” around a given geographical area. SafeGraph, along with its subsidiary Veraset, harvests data from apps, such as a basketball forum, that use its software development kit, as well as through Google’s real-time auction process that sells personal information, according to the complaint.

The county initiated this surveillance operation with approval by its counsel and health officer, Calvary says. Geofences are often used by law enforcement after acquiring a warrant, the complaint said, but the county didn’t acquire such documentation before beginning the operation.

Calvary said the extracted location data goes deeper than just cell-site location information—it also shows “a person’s pattern of life.”

The complaint cited a study in which researchers were able to “uniquely identify 95%" of the individuals in a smartphone location dataset.

“These tools provide a story about where and with whom people socialize, visit, worship, and much more,” the suit says.

Santa Clara County didn’t immediately comment, and SafeGraph didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

McClure and Calvary are represented by Advocates For Faith & Freedom.

The case is Calvary Chapel San Jose et al v. Santa Clara County et al, N.D. Cal., No. 5:23-cv-04277, complaint filed 8/22/23