Robson Crim Legal Blog

Section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (“the Charter”) guarantees the right to be safe from unreasonable search and seizure. In R v Ibrahim (“Ibrahim”), a decision by the Manitoba Court of Appeal (“the MBCA”), the accused was appealing his conviction of possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking on the basis that his rights under section 8 of the Charter were violated.

Section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (“the Charter”) states that “everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure”. The purpose of section 8 is to protect Canadians from unjustified searches before they happen, with the understanding that Canadians are entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy, particularly in the context of state searches.

Cellebrite is a digital forensics company. Among the products they produce are two pieces of software, the Universal Forensic Extraction Device (“the UFED) and Physical Analyser. The UFED creates a backup copy of whatever files are on the digital device it is fed, and Physical Analyzer makes the data browsable by sorting and displaying the data. Together, this software is capable of extracting data ranging from encrypted conversations from your Pokémon GO user data.

What is privacy, anyway? The Oxford dictionary defines privacy as “the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people.” You would not expect to have as much privacy when you are walking down the street as you would when you are inside your own home. When you are out in public people can see you and interact with you, but you would not want to have people come up to your house and look in your windows or to enter your home without invitation.

In McLeod agreed on the facts that Garrioch came to the house on request of McLeod’s father concerning the removal of an intoxicated minor from the premises. The MBQB found sections of each provision to bestow power to safety officers to enforce them. The MBQB answered the question by referring to two past decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada (“the Court”) while focussing on statutory interpretation, R v Myers and Rizzo & Rizzo Shoes.