WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is taking up a case about privacy rights that could limit the government's ability to track Americans' movements in the digital age.

The justices are hearing an appeal Wednesday from Timothy Carpenter. He was sentenced to 116 years in prison after being convicted of robbing electronics stores in Michigan and Ohio. Records from cellphone towers near the stores helped place Carpenter in the vicinity of the crimes.

The big issue is whether police must get a search warrant to look at the records. Rights groups and technology experts are among those who have joined Carpenter in arguing it's too easy for authorities to use the records to learn intimate details of someone's life.

The Supreme Court in recent years has acknowledged technology's effects on Americans' privacy. In 2014, the court held unanimously that police must generally get a warrant to search the cellphones of people they arrest. Other items people carry with them may be looked at without a warrant, after an arrest.

In Carpenter's case, authorities obtained cellphone records for 127 days.