[rayiner]

Except in cases involving “metadata,” there’s typically a highly relevant difference in terms of who owns the data. The fourth amendment says:

> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…

You have a right as to your data, but not other people’s data about you. E.g. you have no right as to a pharmacy’s business records about you. (That’s their data, not your data.)

To my knowledge, no court has ever distinguished between say image and the file metadata on someone’s computer. But the way “metadata” becomes relevant is often because someone else owns “metadata” about your files, such as server logs.