Supreme Court of Canada Rules That Text Messages Are Private

An anonymous reader writes "The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that text messages are private communication (Official Ruling) and therefore police are required to get a warrant to gain access to the text messages of private citizens. The CBC reports: '[Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Silberman] Abella said the only practical difference between text messaging and traditional voice communications is the transmission process. "This distinction should not take text messages outside the protection to which private communications are entitled," she wrote.'" Quite different from the attitude in the U.S.

Comments

The Conservatives will be angry!

[Anonymous Coward]

The only question now is how long before we can get the same protection for ALL forms of communication, regardless of the technology used.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:This comes just after...

[J Story]

uh, he only went through your phone after he asked and you let him. you didn't have to waive your rights.

That's as may be, but it seems to me that the border, on both sides, is a kind of "no man's land", where the usual civil liberties don't apply. When US border agents have the authority to arbitrarily deny you admission to the US for years, it seems to me that refusing a "request" can be a high-risk game for the uninformed.

Re:Good news, but mostly moot.

[Synerg1y]

Simply put: why should the police have access to anything without a reason? are they better than us? do they know better? are they magical?

Nope they're just people like you and me.

Short or long term neither they, or you and I should have access to anybody else's non-public information without a compelling reason.

Re:Good for them

[BenoitRen]

He wasn't talking about a sane government, but a more sane country. Sure, every country (and government) has its issues, but the USA is so far gone that it's its own kind of insanity. You'd be forgiven for occasionally mistaking it for a third world country.

Re:I don't get why this is hard to understand

[cheekyjohnson]

Such a policy has a good chance of saving some lives over the years

I'd much prefer that a few lives be lost than allowing for random exceptions. As I keep saying, I'd be against the TSA even if it was actually effective.