An Ontario judge has ruled there was a breach of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in situations where Cops grab large amounts of data from cell phone towers to use to solve crimes. Here’s the details from the CBC:
[Justice John] Sproat was ruling in a case where police in Peel Region, west of Toronto, obtained a court order for the names, numbers, addresses and banking details of every mobile-phone user whose signals were bouncing off various cellphone towers during a series of jewelry-store robberies in early 2014.
Rogers and Telus challenged the court order as a breach of privacy that would have involved giving police information about more than 40,000 customers, nearly every one of them innocent. Telus officials told the court it was the “most extensive” police demand for customer data the company had ever received.
“We thought that crossed the line and was too broad and intrusive,” said David Watt, chief privacy officer for Rogers Communications Inc., in a statement e-mailed to CBC News on Thursday. “We’re glad the court agreed.”
What I like about this decision is that it make it clear that Cops can’t just troll large amounts of data in the hopes of finding criminals. Clearly the judge felt that there has to be a reasonable expectation of privacy and Cops need to be surgical in their approach to solve crimes.
Now the decision is being reviewed by the Ministry of the Attorney General of Ontario. That means that it is possible that this decision may be appealed. Thus you might want to watch this space for updates.
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This entry was posted on January 14, 2016 at 3:29 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada, Lawsuit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Canadian Court Rules Cops Can’t Troll Cell Tower Data To Solve Crimes
An Ontario judge has ruled there was a breach of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in situations where Cops grab large amounts of data from cell phone towers to use to solve crimes. Here’s the details from the CBC:
[Justice John] Sproat was ruling in a case where police in Peel Region, west of Toronto, obtained a court order for the names, numbers, addresses and banking details of every mobile-phone user whose signals were bouncing off various cellphone towers during a series of jewelry-store robberies in early 2014.
Rogers and Telus challenged the court order as a breach of privacy that would have involved giving police information about more than 40,000 customers, nearly every one of them innocent. Telus officials told the court it was the “most extensive” police demand for customer data the company had ever received.
“We thought that crossed the line and was too broad and intrusive,” said David Watt, chief privacy officer for Rogers Communications Inc., in a statement e-mailed to CBC News on Thursday. “We’re glad the court agreed.”
What I like about this decision is that it make it clear that Cops can’t just troll large amounts of data in the hopes of finding criminals. Clearly the judge felt that there has to be a reasonable expectation of privacy and Cops need to be surgical in their approach to solve crimes.
Now the decision is being reviewed by the Ministry of the Attorney General of Ontario. That means that it is possible that this decision may be appealed. Thus you might want to watch this space for updates.
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This entry was posted on January 14, 2016 at 3:29 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada, Lawsuit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.