Landmark ruling for cell phone privacy in Canada
For Immediate Release
Landmark pro-privacy
ruling sets important precedent for cell phone privacy in
Canada
Police request for “tower dump” of user data from Rogers and Telus ruled a violation of privacy rights
January 14, 2016
– In a landmark decision, an Ontario Superior
Court judge has ruled that police were in breach of the
Charter of Rights and Freedoms when they asked Rogers
and Telus to hand over the personal information—including
deeply-revealing metadata—of over 40,000 customers in a
“tower dump” of user data.
In today’s ruling, Justice John Sproat recognized the reasonable expectation of privacy in cell phone communications – a critical victory for Canadians’ privacy rights. This decision reinforces concerns of the rights violations contained within Bill C-51, which greatly expand the ability of authorities to access Canadians’ private information without a warrant, and raises questions about the constitutionality of StingRay surveillance technologies, which mimic cell towers to produce similar results as tower dumps.
“This is a critical ruling that will help
safeguard the privacy rights of countless Canadians,” said
Laura Tribe, OpenMedia’s Digital Rights
Specialist. “These tower dumps reveal that authorities are
really pushing the limits when it comes to warrantless
access to our private information. Our cell phone data says
a lot about us – and this is an important step to ensuring
that authorities are forced to demonstrate just cause for
these kinds of requests.”
In today’s ruling,
Justice Sproat recognized the vulnerability of personal data
and the perils of sharing information in large quantities
without justification: “It is not tenable to reason that
since only the police will be in possession of this
information any sensitive information will never see the
light of day. One needs only read a daily newspaper to be
aware of the fact that governments and large corporations,
presumably with state of the art computer systems, are
frequently “hacked” resulting in confidential
information being stolen and sometimes posted
on-line.”
When deciding to hear the case, Justice
Sproat warned that “hundreds of thousands, if
not millions” of Canadians were likely to be affected by
similar requests each year. The guidelines laid out today
will ensure that police can only access basic information
about specific targets, rather than bulk collecting the
personal information of thousands of innocent
Canadians.
Today’s ruling reinforces the historic
June 2014 Supreme Court R. v. Spencer ruling that
required police to obtain a search warrant before obtaining
private customer data from telecom companies, further
demonstrating the value of metadata and the importance of
protecting individuals’ data
privacy.
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