In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada decided that Canada’s Constitution safeguards internet protocol (IP) addresses of Canadians against unreasonable search, pursuant to Section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. With this decree, law enforcement agencies are required to secure previous judicial permission before procuring an IP address for criminal inquiries. Click here for the full court ruling.
The majority opinion, authored by Justice Karakatsanis, argued that protection of IP addresses is crucial to uphold Canadians’ online privacy in a substantive way. As an IP address holds the potential to give away detailed information about an individual’s internet usage, it stipulates a reasonable expectancy of privacy, thereby deserving constitutional protection against undue search.
However, this viewpoint met with significant resistance. The dissenting judgment, authored by Justice Côté, opposed the majority’s expansion of the information an IP address might reveal. In his view, the subject matter primarily consisted of the IP address and the disclosed Internet service providers, since an IP address alone does not offer an absolute identification of the suspect, thereby providing no reasonable expectation of privacy.
The dissent further disputed the private nature of IP addresses, given that the user has minimal control over them. The majority countered this argument by saying that while the traditional approach to privacy largely depends on control over the subject matter, place of search, and the private nature of the subject matter, these factors are not always conclusive in the digital realm. Alternatively, if this traditional approach continues to be followed, Canadians’ informational privacy will remain unprotected unless they opt out of online activities entirely.
The case at hand involved a claimant who argued that the police violated their constitutional rights by retrieving their IP addresses from the processing company without judicial authorization. It is noteworthy that similar privacy issues have arisen in other jurisdictions. For instance, Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects the right to private and family life, and has led to similar cases in the European Court of Justice, such as the case of Benedik v Slovenia in 2018. The court ruling can be found here.
As more debates regarding online privacy continue to take place across nations, rulings such as these will certainly add essential context and force of thought in the ever-changing digital landscape.