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Court Rules ISP Subscriber Information Is Not Private
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice recently ruled that certain personal information “is akin to information in a phone book” and does not attract a “reasonable expectation of privacy”.
Police officers in St. Thomas were investigating a case involving child pornography. In trying to identify the accused, then suspected of accessing child pornography from a particular internet protocol address, the police requested (without a warrant) subscriber information for that specific internet protocol address from Bell Canada, who released the information. The subscriber on record was the spouse of the accused.
The Court rejected the claim that the police violated the accused’s privacy rights, ruling that no breach of the Personal Information and Electronic Documents Act had occurred. Specifically, the Court stated that “one’s name and address or the name and address of your spouse are not biographical information one expects would be kept private from the state.”
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