Mar 01, 2024 - 20:55
By cbc.ca

Police now need a warrant to get a person's IP address, Supreme Court rules

The Supreme Court of Canada made a key privacy ruling Friday that means police must now first have a warrant or court order to obtain the numbers making up a person or organization's IP address.

The top court was asked to consider whether an IP address alone, without any of the personal information attached to it, was protected by an expectation of privacy under the Charter.

In a five-four split decision, the court said a reasonable expectation of privacy is attached to the numbers making up a person's IP address, and just getting those numbers alone constitutes a search.

Writing for the majority, Justice Andromache Karakatsanis wrote that an IP address is «the crucial link between an internet user and their online activity.»

«Thus, the subject matter of this search was the information these IP addresses could reveal about specific internet users including, ultimately, their identity.»

Writing for the four dissenting judges, Justice Suzanne Côté disagreed with that central point, saying there should be no expectation of privacy around an IP address alone.

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.

Police contacted Moneris and asked for the IP address associated with the purchases, without providing a court order or warrant. Moneris gave two IP addresses to the police.