Final answer:
The search incident to arrest doctrine does not apply to a search of the data on a cellular phone, as affirmed by Riley v. California, making the statement true. The Supreme Court has emphasized warrant requirements for cell phone data and location tracking through seminal cases, reflecting an expansion of Fourth Amendment protections.
Step-by-step explanation:
The statement that the search incident to arrest doctrine does not apply to a search of the data on a cellular phone is true. In Riley v. California, the Supreme Court ruled that police must obtain a warrant before searching digital information on a cell phone seized from an individual who has been arrested.
The Court recognized the vast amount of private information stored on modern cell phones and afforded greater privacy protections to such data. Similarly, the Court's decisions in the cases of United States v. Jones and Carpenter v. United States further extended Fourth Amendment protections to include warrantless location tracking and accessing of information provided to cellular companies.
The concept of 'search incident to arrest' allows law enforcement to conduct a search on a person and the immediate surroundings for officer safety and evidence preservation without a warrant. However, this does not extend to digital data on cell phones due to the distinct privacy concerns raised by such searches.