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R v Reeves: Shared Computer? Don’t Fret—Your Secrets are Safe
People share things. They share rooms, apartments, and wi-fi passwords. They share socks, Netflix accounts, and leftovers. But what does this sharing entail, exactly? As a shared owner, what rights do you actually have? Does shared ownership allow one to unilaterally decide what happens to the shared object or thing? In R v Reeves, 2018 […]
R v Reeves: The Impact of Joint-Residence on One’s Reasonable Expectation of Privacy
On May 5th 2017, the Ontario Court of Appeal released its decision in R v Reeves, 2017 ONCA 365 [Reeves], which deals with issues relating to the search and seizure of a computer from a jointly-owned home. The judgment also considers the admissibility of evidence (child pornography, in this case) obtained in violation of an […]
Return to Sender: Reasonable Expectations of Privacy in R v Marakah
How private are your private messages? Can the police read the texts you send to others? This post explores R v Marakah, 2017 SCC 59, in which the Supreme Court of Canada found that a sender can have a reasonable expectation of privacy over messages retrieved from the phone of the person receiving those messages. The […]
R v Fearon: Cell Phones, Privacy, and the Supreme Court in the Digital Age
In R v Fearon, 2014 SCC 77 [Fearon], the Supreme Court of Canada considered the circumstances under which police officers can justifiably conduct a warrantless search of an arrestee's cell phone or other digital device. Fundamentally, the decision required the court to assess and balance the public purposes served by effective law enforcement against the dignity and privacy […]