Smartphone seize and search case heard by Appeals Court
Posted January 20, 2014 12:39 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Should police have the right to take your phone and search it without your permission if you are placed under arrest?
A man and his lawyers insist it’s unconstitutional and the issue is being debated at the BC Court of Appeal over the next two days.
The defense calls it intrusive. It argues that phones today are equivalent to a personal computer.
It feels if officers want to do a full forensic analysis of a device, they should obtain a proper warrant.
The BC Civil Liberties Association is also on hand intervening in the case and it has serious personal privacy concerns.
The case at the BC Court of Appeal comes after a man was arrested in 2006 following a kidnapping. He was released without being charged but his Blackberry stayed with police. Several weeks later, the man ended up being charged with kidnapping and was again arrested.
During his second arrest, a second Blackberry was seized from the car he had been driving. Both phones were eventually sent for data extraction, which was completed after much time had already passed.
The analysis of the phones captured every piece of data generated by the user.
There are also claims today that the Crown’s case was built on text messages.
