Police Now Need Warrant For IP Addresses, Canada's Top Court Rules (www.cbc.ca) 36
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled today that police must now have a warrant or court order to obtain a person or organization's IP address. CBC News reports: The top court was asked to consider whether an IP address alone, without any of the personal information attached to it, was protected by an expectation of privacy under the Charter. In a five-four split decision, the court said a reasonable expectation of privacy is attached to the numbers making up a person's IP address, and just getting those numbers alone constitutes a search. Writing for the majority, Justice Andromache Karakatsanis wrote that an IP address is "the crucial link between an internet user and their online activity." "Thus, the subject matter of this search was the information these IP addresses could reveal about specific internet users including, ultimately, their identity." Writing for the four dissenting judges, Justice Suzanne Cote disagreed with that central point, saying there should be no expectation of privacy around an IP address alone. [...]
In the Supreme Court majority decision, Karakatsanis said that only considering the information associated with an IP address to be protected by the Charter and not the IP address itself "reflects piecemeal reasoning" that ignores the broad purpose of the Charter. The ruling said the privacy interests cannot be limited to what the IP address can reveal on its own "without consideration of what it can reveal in combination with other available information, particularly from third-party websites." It went on to say that because an IP address unlocks a user's identity, it comes with a reasonable expectation of privacy and is therefore protected by the Charter. "If [the Charter] is to meaningfully protect the online privacy of Canadians in today's overwhelmingly digital world, it must protect their IP addresses," the ruling said.
Justice Cote, writing on behalf of justices Richard Wagner, Malcolm Rowe and Michelle O'Bonsawin, acknowledged that IP addresses "are not sought for their own sake" but are "sought for the information they reveal." "However, the evidentiary record in this case establishes that an IP address, on its own, reveals only limited information," she wrote. Cote said the biographical personal information the law was designed to protect are not revealed through having access to an IP address. Police must use that IP address to access personal information that is held by an ISP or a website that tracks customers' IP addresses to determine their habits. "On its own, an IP address does not even reveal browsing habits," Cote wrote. "What it reveals is a user's ISP -- hardly a more private piece of information than electricity usage or heat emissions." Cote said placing a reasonable expectation of privacy on an IP address alone upsets the careful balance the Supreme Court has struck between Canadians' privacy interests and the needs of law enforcement. "It would be inconsistent with a functional approach to defining the subject matter of the search to effectively hold that any step taken in an investigation engages a reasonable expectation of privacy," the dissenting opinion said.
In the Supreme Court majority decision, Karakatsanis said that only considering the information associated with an IP address to be protected by the Charter and not the IP address itself "reflects piecemeal reasoning" that ignores the broad purpose of the Charter. The ruling said the privacy interests cannot be limited to what the IP address can reveal on its own "without consideration of what it can reveal in combination with other available information, particularly from third-party websites." It went on to say that because an IP address unlocks a user's identity, it comes with a reasonable expectation of privacy and is therefore protected by the Charter. "If [the Charter] is to meaningfully protect the online privacy of Canadians in today's overwhelmingly digital world, it must protect their IP addresses," the ruling said.
Justice Cote, writing on behalf of justices Richard Wagner, Malcolm Rowe and Michelle O'Bonsawin, acknowledged that IP addresses "are not sought for their own sake" but are "sought for the information they reveal." "However, the evidentiary record in this case establishes that an IP address, on its own, reveals only limited information," she wrote. Cote said the biographical personal information the law was designed to protect are not revealed through having access to an IP address. Police must use that IP address to access personal information that is held by an ISP or a website that tracks customers' IP addresses to determine their habits. "On its own, an IP address does not even reveal browsing habits," Cote wrote. "What it reveals is a user's ISP -- hardly a more private piece of information than electricity usage or heat emissions." Cote said placing a reasonable expectation of privacy on an IP address alone upsets the careful balance the Supreme Court has struck between Canadians' privacy interests and the needs of law enforcement. "It would be inconsistent with a functional approach to defining the subject matter of the search to effectively hold that any step taken in an investigation engages a reasonable expectation of privacy," the dissenting opinion said.
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Quasi as in “not really”
This is the same as us trying to prevent police from knowing our street address.
What you need a warrant for is not the address, but to spy on the information that is being opened by people inside that house.
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if you can talk to me directly on the internet, you can see the same IP address that would be handed out.
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Good ruling! (Score:2)
USAians might diss Canada's freedom of expression environment, with a certain amount of justification, but we have way better privacy laws than down in the USA.
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Privacy rights are useless with a government that does not respect the right to speech and to transact.
Re: Good ruling! (Score:3)
Re: Canada Sucks! (Score:1)
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As an immigrant to Canada, I'm very happy with this country. Now excuse me while I enjoy retirement after an entrepreneurial career in Canada, having sold my company for enough to retire on (ambition and marketable skills, I guess.)
And I'll enjoy my free medical care, thanks! Byeee!
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Canada is in trouble, absolutely. But it's all relative. I look to our South and say "Yup, OK, I'll stay here, thanks!"
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Not worrying about who's packing heat and not worrying about being bankrupted by a medical emergency beats warm weather and more money. And besides, the weather here is getting better thanks to climate change; we've just had the warmest winter on record.
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If the authorities want to know who is making this post (me) they should need a warrant rather than just asking
In the reference case, I'm pretty sure the police could have easily gotten a warrant for the IP info from Moneris, just as they did from the IP owners ISP. It would not have affected the outcome of this case
I just have to say this (Score:3, Interesting)
Privacy and freedom, which are inextricably linked, have been under relentless attack all over the world. This is the first serious push-back I've seen against this full-on assault in a long time.
I am SO proud of my country today.
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I am SO proud of my country today.
I wouldn't be that proud, it wasn't a unanimous decision - 4 out of the 9 Justices were in support of police gaining access to your IP address without a warrant.
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I'll keep right on being proud, thanks...especially when I look south and see the appalling catastrophe that is the US Supreme Court.
IP is the same as a phonenumber (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to agree with the supreme court on this one. In majority of Europe it has long been a requirement to get a warrant to locate the owner of an IP.
You may not NEED to have a users PC, if you have their IPs history of interactions with sites. As such it seems reasonable that anything that can reveal the owners identity is subject to privacy.
If police sees a phonenumber dialing a drug dealer, they would also need a warrant to tap that phone line, or identify an unlisted caller from the phone company. There really should be no difference to privacy, if it is via letter, telephone, email, messenger, or even smoke signals or carrier pigeons. All forms of communications are private, and the minute you start snooping into that, either by reading it, or identfying the owner of it, that should only be done due to legitimate concerns, enough concern to convince a judge to sign a warrant.
Meanwhile our top courts (Score:2)
There's a lot of voters who focused on the American Supreme Court doing one or two big things they like that don't really affect their lives personally and have been ignoring a steady stream of rulings that will directly impact them.
But Trudeau can seize (Score:3)
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I agree with you. The problem is that the alternative to Trudeau is Little PeePee, and he's even worse. What wouldn't I give for new leaders for all three of the major political parties. I'd keep Elizabeth May. In fact, I wish to hell she'd switch to something besides the Greens, where she'd have at least a chance of accomplishing something.