LawyerSelect.ca - Criminal Law Blog

Do I Have To Give Police My Cellphone Password? This blog is brought to you by LawyerSelect.ca As technology advances, both law enforcement and criminals will seek to use it to gain an advantage on the other. The duel between police and criminals is the embodiment of the notion of ebb and flow. One of them gains an upper hand temporarily, while the other rushes to catch up. This couldn’t be more true than it is for the case of cell phones. In August, 2016, a group made up of all the Canadian Chiefs of Police met and passed a non-binding resolution that called for the enactment of a law that empowers police to unlock digital devices. For some time now, police officials have sounded off complaints that high levels of criminal activity is going undetected, and the evidence of its commission is stored on encrypted mobile phones. As it currently stands, there is no Canadian law that requires you to provide a police officer with the password to your mobile device. Police...

Does a Cellphone User Have A Privacy Interest in the Cell Records of an Account Held By Someone Else? This blog has been brought to you by LawyerSelect.ca In 2013, I represented a client who was charged with fraud over $5000. The Crown alleged that he drove drunk and hit his vehicle, and rather than reporting the collision, he abandoned the vehicle and reported it stolen the next day. During the course of their investigation, police obtained a production order for the cell records of my client’s cell phone. They used the cell tower records to show that my client wasn’t near where he said he was at the time in question. But the phone didn’t technically belong to my client; rather, the line was registered under his girlfriend’s name. However, he provided police with the number to that phone when they requested a contact number, and when asked if that was his number, he responded in the affirmative. At all material times, my client used the phone like it was his, and made it c...