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Cellphone Privacy In Canada: Encryption Triggers Need For Warrant

Posted by timothy on from the rot13-baby-rot13 dept.

codegen writes "The Ontario Court of Appeal has just ruled that the police can search your cellphone if you are arrested without a warrant if it is not password protected. But the ruling also stated that if it is password protected, then the police need a warrant. Previous to this case there was no decision on if the police could search your phone without a warrant in Canada."

9 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Spread em' by Jeslijar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This seems directly equivalent to "If your front door is unlocked the police can come in and snoop around without a warrant"

    You could say the same thing with several other things like...

    "if your car is unlocked they can rummage through it legally without a warrant"

    and

    "If your fly is down, they can do a cavity search legally without a warrant"

    1. Re:Spread em' by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 5, Funny

      1. Home owner takes trash to curb.
      2. SWAT team swoops into unlocked door.
      3. Ha! The mattress tags have been removed! Another victory for law enforcement!

    2. Re:Spread em' by c · · Score: 4, Insightful

      3. Ha! The mattress tags have been removed! Another victory for law enforcement!

      I was going to point out that it's perfectly legal for the consumer to remove the tags from their own mattresses.

      But it occurs to me that the validity of the charge doesn't really matter that much after said consumer has been punched, tasered, kicked, cuffed, slammed into the police car, cavity searched, held in a jail cell with the finest local thugs, and charged with resisting arrest and removing mattress tags.

      --
      Log in or piss off.
    3. Re:Spread em' by ark1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So if I put locks on my pockets, Police won't be allowed to search them?

    4. Re:Spread em' by sumdumass · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You forgot killed because the swat team went to the wrong house yet again.

  2. Works for me by nebular · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Makes sense to me. If I were to be arrested without a warrant, the police can go through all the pockets of my wallet and look at every card and piece of paper I have in there, however if I were to have a lock on my wallet, they would need a warrant to open it. The modern cell phone is very much the same as the wallet and datebook of the past. If it's not locked, they can go through it.

    1. Re:Works for me by RobinH · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not quite the same. Your wallet doesn't contain a log of all electronic communications you've had with other people. Remember, they're searching through the communication histories of *those* people too. That means even if you lock your own cell phone, the police can get access to communications you've had by searching other people's unlocked phones. I'm not saying that's wrong, exactly, but it's different from a wallet.

      --
      "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
  3. Room within a room. by concealment · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A real world analogy: encryption is like a room within a room.

    If you were to enter a residence, and find it divided into apartments, you'd probably have to get a warrant for each locked, separately numbered door.

    The real question is whether one individual can have multiple rooms within a room. If your phone and computer are encrypted, do they need a warrant for each?

  4. Re:Huh? by z4nsh1n · · Score: 5, Informative

    The ninth circuit is not the supreme court. In fact, the supreme court overturned the ninth circuit's ruling: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/01/supreme-court-holds-warrantless-gps-tracking-unconstitutional/