A bill passed in the U.S. House of Representatives this week requires law enforcement agencies to have a search warrant before requesting the email records of people they are investigating.

The bill, called the Email Privacy Act, passed unanimously in the House after years of lobbying efforts from privacy advocates, though its fate in the Senate remains uncertain.

Authorities would need a warrant to access emails or other digital communications more than 180 days old. Currently, agencies such as the U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission only need a subpoena to seek such data from a service provider, Reuters reports.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation hailed the House's passage of the bill as an important step in updating the decades-old Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and codifying a circuit court ruling that also requires warrants before requesting emails.

But the EFF also noted some shortcomings in the House bill, including that it is silent on whether authorities must notify users if they request their emails. Privacy advocates have long supported such a requirement in data privacy laws. Many service providers, including Apple, publish aggregate reports of their responses to law enforcement requests for data.

The Senate is considering similar legislation to the House bill, though it was unclear if Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, who holds jurisdiction over the legislation, intends to move it forward during an election year, according to Reuters.

"It is long past time to reassure the American people that their online communications are protected from warrantless searches," the sponsors of the Senate bill, Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), said in a statement. "We urge the Senate to take up and pass this bipartisan, common-sense legislation without delay."