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A CBC investigative series is reporting:
Most Canadians feel strongly about their right to privacy online, but a new poll shows the vast majority are willing to grant police new powers to track suspects in the digital realm — so long as the courts oversee the cops.
Nearly half of the respondents to an Abacus Data survey of 2,500 Canadians agreed that citizens should have a right to complete digital privacy. But many appeared to change their mind when asked if an individual suspected of committing a serious crime should have the same right to keep their identity hidden from police.
Respondents were significantly more willing to grant police powers if a court order was required.
Police used to request subscriber information hundreds of thousands of times a year, but that changed in 2014, when the Supreme Court ruled that in the absence of a specific law, police requests to phone and internet companies amount to a search and therefore require a warrant.
Police compare it to looking up licence plate information, which doesn't require permission from a judge.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Francis on Sunday November 20 2016, @04:18AM
The issue here is a lack of sense in the judiciary. Something being done in public where people can see it, is not the same thing as one person following you around all day every day taking notes. When it's a private citizen, we generally call that stalking. When it's the police that's usually something that requires an actual person or more to do it.
Extending it to license plate scanners that can keep tabs on large numbers of cars makes little sense and the judiciary really ought to consider whether the same rules that applied to individual officers observing things in public make sense when extended to automated surveillance systems.