July 2014 The Supreme court ruled in Riley v. California that a cop may not search the phone of an arrested suspect without a warrant.
“Modern cell phones are not just another technological convenience. With
all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans
‘the privacies of life’… The fact that technology now allows an
individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the
information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders
fought. Our answer to the question of what police must do before
searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly
simple—get a warrant.”