Technology

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.

Personally I agree with the majority opinion here. "For the safety of children and crime victims" is too often used as an excuse to unleash wide-reaching attacks on privacy.

Police will still be able to obtain the information they need when the cases involving children and victims of crime happen, they just need to get permission from the courts. This ruling seems to prevent law enforcement from doing an internet analogue of "carding", requesting and obtaining random Canadian IPs in search of something to prosecute.

This is kind of wild to me.

(In the US) When movie companies were trying to force sites to turn over IPs of people discussing piracy? Fuck that shit.

But the actual victim of a crime turning over an IP address they have as a necessary part of the fraudulent transaction not being allowed?

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The court's decision is based on the case of Andrei Bykovets, who was convicted of 14 online fraud offences, for purchases made from an Alberta liquor store.

In 2017, the Calgary Police Service investigating the alleged crime discovered that the store's online sales were managed by Moneris, a third-party payment processing company.

At trial, Bykovets argued that he was the victim of an unreasonable search and seizure, a violation of Section 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, because he had an expectation of privacy with respect to his IP address.

"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.

"The idea that Canadians wouldn't have an expectation of privacy in their IP addresses is a very scary proposition for us and we are glad that the court recognized the importance of going the other way on this one," Jack told CBC News.

Kerry Shima, acting officer in charge of Alert ICE, the internet child exploitation unit for Alberta, told CBC News that "in virtually every case" an IP address "kick-starts" their investigations.

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