Two of sa国际传媒鈥檚 major telecommunications companies are correct in requiring warrants before handing over customer information to law-enforcement agencies. The vastness of digital information and the ease with which it can be retrieved are not justification to bypass basic legal processes.
Rogers and Telus say they will no longer routinely give basic customer information to police and security agencies without a warrant. That follows a Supreme Court ruling in June that says police need judicial authorization to get personal information about customers from Internet providers.
Police and other agencies have been in the habit of asking for subscriber information from telecoms 鈥� Rogers says it received 175,000 such requests last year. The company said it had a policy of responding to name and address requests, but because of the Supreme Court ruling and demands from customers for better privacy protection, it will now require warrants.
Telus said it no longer provides customer information to police without a warrant, except in emergency situations, or if the information is already available in a phone book.
The companies鈥� announcements come on the heels of vigorous debate in Parliament over the Conservative government鈥檚 cyberbullying bill that would, among other things, expand the ability of police to get access to personal electronic devices and online data.
Police need to be able to go where the criminals go; they need 21st-century tools to fight 21st-century crime. But as the technical reach grows for law enforcement, so must safeguards be strengthened to ensure the powers of police and security agencies don鈥檛 go too far. The long arm should not be able to reach beyond the law and basic rights. As tempting as it might be to go fishing in the huge pools of information that are now available, the technical ease with which that can be done should not overshadow the basic rules of reasonable grounds and judicial authorization.
Protection from unreasonable search and seizure has long been a fundamental right. No one questions that police need a warrant, in most cases, before entering someone鈥檚 property to conduct a search. The digital realm should be no different.
It takes time for the law to catch up with technological advances, but it is happening. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that police generally cannot examine the contents of cellphones of people they arrest without getting search warrants.
The sa国际传媒 Supreme Court was a step ahead of the U.S. court, having already ruled that police cannot download the contents of a suspect鈥檚 cellphone without a warrant.
The information available on a cellphone could indeed be valuable in an investigation. In the U.S. case, the judge said authorities concerned about destruction of evidence can take steps to prevent the remote erasure of a phone鈥檚 contents or the activation of encryption while they apply for a warrant.
It used to be that police had to come to our doors to search our property. Now there are countless doors into our lives, some we might not be aware of. With the right software and hardware, investigators can delve into people鈥檚 lives without leaving their offices. They can get access to financial records, shopping habits, entertainment preferences and personal communications, and can even obtain information from such things as the computer systems in cars and intelligent appliances.
It鈥檚 a digital jungle out there. Predators of one sort or another lurk behind every bush, and police need the tools and the powers to deal with them, but those powers must be carefully managed to guard against abuse and maintain public confidence.
