A judge of the Ontario Superior court has said that police must make the narrowest requests for information from cell phone operators in the pursuit of criminals. The decision is made in the wake of a recent request from Peel Region Police which asked for thousands of names and numbers as they pursued a probe into a series of local jewellery store robberies. As expected, the judge, Justice John Sproat, found such “dumps” of information to be a violation of the Charter of Rights. Instead, he set out guidelines so that police may only obtain a narrower amount of information about cellphone users directly relevant to the investigation. Police will probably say that this is asking them to read the minds of criminals. What’s relevant? But Sgt. Dan Richardson of the Peel Police said that overall the decision “still allows police the opportunity to work toward solving crime.”
