

Cellphone searches upon arrest allowed by Canada's top court - Wyndsage
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cellphone-searches-upon-arrest-allowed-by-canada-s-top-court-1.2869587

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noarchy
And what if I have an encrypted phone? Can I be compelled to turn over my
password? Or my thumbprint? If I use the equivalent of a dead man's switch
that wipes my phone if law enforcement tries unsuccessfully to get in, what
then?

There may be case law that covers this, but I am genuinely curious.

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duaneb
I can't speak for Canada, but in the US, if a judge orders you to provide a
password, you have no choice. If you don't hand it over, this will result in
you living broke forever in a prison—and you got your due process.

~~~
jacobolus
That’s overly reductionist.
[http://federalevidence.com/pdf/EvidViewPoints/aug.2012.EVP-K...](http://federalevidence.com/pdf/EvidViewPoints/aug.2012.EVP-
Kaufman.pdf)

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amalcon
The HN title matches the article title, but it's somewhat misleading. The
court actually ruled that the particular case before it was _not_ a legal
search, and that cellphone searches are only allowed under specific
circumstances.

It looks to me as though the circumstances are a bit too broad, but it's not
as though Canadian police will suddenly be allowed to search the cellphones of
everyone they arrest.

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MAGZine
It's a win/lose for privacy in Canada.

Obviously, giving officers the ability to search phones without a warrant is a
bit troubling. However, the Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that
phones without pass-codes still contain intensely private information, and
thus are still subject to privacy implications. It's just unfortunate that
this bit narrowly passed. (4-3)

> An individual’s decision not to password protect his or her cell phone does
> not indicate any sort of abandonment of the significant privacy interests
> one generally will have in the contents of the phone. Cell phones – locked
> or unlocked – engage significant privacy interests. \- The majority ruling's
> statement[0]

[0] [http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2014/12/supreme-courts-privacy-
st...](http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2014/12/supreme-courts-privacy-streak-comes-
end-split-court-affirms-legality-warrantless-phone-searches-incident-arrest/)

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hnnewguy
> _The Supreme Court of Canada says law enforcement officials can go through
> the cellphone of someone under arrest as long as the search relates directly
> to the arrest and police keep detailed notes._

Fair enough. Now how do they plan on enforcing these rules?

~~~
anigbrowl
It's a problem all right, because the police could arrest someone for
littering, find evidence of drug dealing in a phone, and then retroactively
claim some suspicion of the latter in order to justify more severe charges.

The technical approach to this would be to clone some existing version control
system and have a country's court system run its own equivalent of GitHub, so
that police could submit crimes and evidence as they are
investigated/discovered but not monkey about with their own records. Of course
such a system would not be cost-free, and it would still be open to abuses
from both sides.

~~~
nickff
The version control system you describe was originally designed for text-based
code, and would probably impose significant time costs on the officers, and
delays on the suspects. Police cameras, which could be required to be turned
on at any stop, or before any search/arrest would provide the same information
(if the officers were required to state their cause aloud). The cameras could
even be set to save 5, 10, or 15 minutes of footage before 'activated', so
that the police would not be able to claim they 'were in a rush'. This system
could also be automatically activated by a gunshot or other sound.

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emptybits
If law enforcement has sufficient cause to arrest someone, then getting a
search warrant after the arrest should be easy.

If it wasn't easy to obtain such warrants then either _that_ aspect of
judiciary or policy needed changing, or else it wasn't easy for a good reason!

This decision does not address (or change) whether one can be compelled to
reveal a password-locked phone in Canada. At least one Canadian Civil
Liberties Association suggests this decision this raises more questions than
it answers.
[https://twitter.com/bccla/status/543124869240471552](https://twitter.com/bccla/status/543124869240471552)

