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sm5w2
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join:2004-10-13
St Thomas, ON

sm5w2

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Quebecer charged at border - won't give cellphone password

Quebec resident Alain Philippon to fight charge for not giving up phone password at airport
Whether border officials can force you to provide password hasn't been tested in Canadian courts

A Quebec man charged with obstructing border officials by refusing to give up his smartphone password says he will fight the charge.

The case has raised a new legal question in Canada, a law professor says.

Alain Philippon, 38, of Ste-Anne-des-Plaines, Que., refused to divulge his cellphone password to Canada Border Services Agency during a customs search Monday night at Halifax Stanfield International Airport.

Philippon had arrived in Halifax on a flight from Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. He's been charged under section 153.1 (b) of the Customs Act for hindering or preventing border officers from performing their role under the act.

According to the CBSA, the minimum fine for the offence is $1,000, with a maximum fine of $25,000 and the possibility of a year in jail.

Philippon did not want to be interviewed but said he intends to fight the charge since he considers the information on his phone to be "personal."

The CBSA wouldn't say why Philippon was selected for a smartphone search.

In an email, a border services spokesperson wrote, "Officers are trained in examination, investigative and questioning techniques. To divulge our approach may render our techniques ineffective. Officers are trained to look for indicators of deception and use a risk management approach in determining which goods may warrant a closer look."

Rob Currie, director of the Law and Technology Institute at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, said that under Canadian law, travellers crossing the Canadian border have a reduced expectation of privacy.

He said border officials have wide-ranging powers to search travellers and their belongings.

"Under the Customs Act, customs officers are allowed to inspect things that you have, that you're bringing into the country," he told CBC News. "The term used in the act is 'goods,' but that certainly extends to your cellphone, to your tablet, to your computer, pretty much anything you have."

Philippon has been released on bail, and will return to court in Dartmouth on May 12 for election and plea.

Currie said the issue of whether a traveller must reveal a password to an electronic device at the border hasn’t been tested by a court.

"This is a question that has not been litigated in Canada, whether they can actually demand you to hand over your password to allow them to unlock the device," he said. "[It's] one thing for them to inspect it, another thing for them to compel you to help them."

Currie said the obstruction case hinges on that distinction.

"[It's] a very interesting one to watch."

»www.cbc.ca/news/canada/n ··· .2982236

El Quintron
Cancel Culture Ambassador
Premium Member
join:2008-04-28
Tronna

El Quintron

Premium Member

That's interesting,

I think the CBSA will most likely lose, but if they win, this should serve as a warning that you should be bringing either a burner phone, or a recently factory restored phone when you travel.

EQ
PX Eliezer1
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join:2013-03-10
Zubrowka USA

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to sm5w2
That's very interesting.

AFAIK under both Canadian and US law there is a reduced expectation of privacy when entering the country.

In the US in fact, it sometimes even applies within 100 miles of the border, which covers a huge part of the country.

But while a cell phone can be inspected to be sure that it IS a cellphone, wanting to examine the data is a step beyond.

The same would apply to a laptop, other portable computer, or similar device.

Is a search warrant needed to examine the electronic data one is carrying?

Should be an interesting time in court, and will surely reach an appellate level either way.
peterboro (banned)
Avatars are for posers
join:2006-11-03
Peterborough, ON

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So I saw this movie called Sex Tape recently and there is this mysterious place you can put computer stuff in called the "Cloud".

So you send your stuff to this cloud place and get it back after you cross the border and no need to lock your phone with a password.

Of course this is based on my knowledge of these smartphone trinkets which I don't have.
peterboro

peterboro (banned) to PX Eliezer1

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to PX Eliezer1
said by PX Eliezer1:

Is a search warrant needed to examine the electronic data one is carrying?

CBSA is hoping to ride on the R. v. Fearon Supreme Court of Canada decision in December with this charge.

Raptor
Not a Dumptruck
join:2001-10-21
London, ON

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I'm curious what customs was expecting to find on the phone that was in violation of returning to the country. Are they allowed to read his emails, texts, look at his pics? Maybe they should just radio the local police of his hometown and get them to search his house before they let him cross the border. This should not fall under the "reduced expectation of privacy".

"Officers are trained to look for indicators of deception".
That's like saying pleading the 5th is an automatic admission of guilt.

Being charged for "obstructing their role". There's a blanket statement/law if I've ever seen one.

Good for this guy.
peterboro (banned)
Avatars are for posers
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Peterborough, ON

peterboro (banned)

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said by Raptor:

I'm curious what customs was expecting to find on the phone that was in violation of returning to the country. Are they allowed to read his emails, texts, look at his pics?

At secondary on either side of the border they will go through anything they get access to on any device you have then grill you on what they find if it tweaks their curiosity.
PX Eliezer1
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Zubrowka USA

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said by Raptor:

That's like saying pleading the 5th is an automatic admission of guilt.

An American expression.

Raptor
Not a Dumptruck
join:2001-10-21
London, ON

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to peterboro
I understand. And while I'm not super on board with going through a phone/laptop/etc even if it's unlocked, you could argue that searching an unlocked device is no different than havings polaroids in your suitcase of the dead hooker back in the Dominican. Though we all know that the data stores on peoples phones are far and beyond what they may or may not have engaged in while out of country.

What I really don't like the idea of being compelled to unlock/decrypt your device(s), and then that refusal being in violation of the law.
Raptor

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to PX Eliezer1
said by PX Eliezer1:

An American expression.

Fine. Pleading the Section 11-c/13.

Anav
Sarcastic Llama? Naw, Just Acerbic
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join:2001-07-16
Dartmouth, NS

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Manifests of passenger lists are well known ahead of time.
If one is a suspect, get a warrant and then search all you want.

If there is not going to be any meaningful oversight on these orgz we better have good rules for engagement.

Gone
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join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

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If he wins in court, the result will be the CBSA doing what the Americans do now and seizing any electronic devices when you refuse to volunteer the password so that they can utilize other means to search the device instead. Quite honestly, I'm surprised they just didn't do that.
btech805
join:2013-08-01
Canada

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I believe there already was a court decision which stated that unlocked devices have no expectation of privacy?

I agree this will be a very interesting on to watch...

BonezX
Basement Dweller
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join:2004-04-13
Canada

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If he wins nothing happens, locked devices(all devices should be locked anyway) will continue to be locked and you will not be legally required to unlock them without a warrant for the information on the device, also any information could be deemed non-admissible in court due to how the information was acquired(without a warrant).

This goes along with the "searching your phone" law that was passed, being that people keep some pretty personal information(and financial information) on their devices there should be a legal requirement for a judge to issue a warrant, not just joe traffic cop wants to look at your phone on the side of the road and can arrest you for obstruction if you don't hand it over.
analog andy
join:2005-01-03
Surrey, BC

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Would have been easier to back up/encrypt/zip up and mail the phone back up to your self then just wipe the phone before reentering. Or get a burner phone and fed ex the phone to Canada.
yyzlhr
join:2012-09-03
Scarborough, ON

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said by Raptor:

I'm curious what customs was expecting to find on the phone that was in violation of returning to the country. Are they allowed to read his emails, texts, look at his pics?

Good for this guy.

Child pornography, communications with drug traffickers to name a few.

shaner
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join:2000-10-04
Calgary, AB

1 recommendation

shaner

Premium Member

said by yyzlhr:

said by Raptor:

I'm curious what customs was expecting to find on the phone that was in violation of returning to the country. Are they allowed to read his emails, texts, look at his pics?

Good for this guy.

Child pornography, communications with drug traffickers to name a few.

Without any reasonable suspicion of guilt? Forget it. If you don't know specifically what you're looking for before you grab my phone, you aren't getting the password. And you better have a damn good reason for suspecting that content exists.

Besides, they couldn't deny him entry into his home country. This smells of a bogus "resisting arrest" charge.

Raptor
Not a Dumptruck
join:2001-10-21
London, ON

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I understand what COULD have been there, but at that point you may as well search everyone's phone for kiddie porn, every time they cross the border, if that's the reasoning.

dirtyjeffer0
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London, ON

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said by peterboro:

So I saw this movie called Sex Tape recently and there is this mysterious place you can put computer stuff in called the "Cloud".

So you send your stuff to this cloud place and get it back after you cross the border and no need to lock your phone with a password.

Of course this is based on my knowledge of these smartphone trinkets which I don't have.

the problem is, once the phone is unlocked, you can then access all that data in the cloud with said device.

i'm no privacy nut by any means, but this is bullshit.

personally, when travelling to other countries, i don't bring my phone anyway, but i still don't think what happened is right...if you have suspicion of something, get a warrant.

sm5w2
Premium Member
join:2004-10-13
St Thomas, ON

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sm5w2

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There's some Canadian TV reality series about Canadian customs agents going about their work at various crossings and ports. They go nuts over American's phones and are constantly telling them unless you let us look through your phone, you can just turn around and go back. These agents go on wild goose chases when they find a hard drive in the desk of the cabin of a crew member on a freighter and in the end find nothing. But it makes for good TV drama.

It's nothing but voyerism on the part of these agents.

As a Canadian returning to his own country, how the hell can you be compelled to reveal a password to a private cache of information? If the phone ->is really a phone- (not a bomb, no secret compartment containing drugs) then that's as far as border agents need to go and should be allowed to go when checking the personal property of Canadians returning to the country.

I wonder if various higher law enforcement agencies (RCMP, CSIS, Attorney General) was looking for a test case on this and had given orders for some border post somewhere to make it happen. Or if they were caught off guard by this and don't really want to see this case go to court for fear of losing.

Is the gov't ready for the negative optics this will create in the eyes of the sheeple? With an election on the horizon?

Ian1
Premium Member
join:2002-06-18
ON

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said by shaner:

Besides, they couldn't deny him entry into his home country. This smells of a bogus "resisting arrest" charge.

Agreed. Just a pissed-off penny-ante "official" upset that his or her orders weren't followed. I am glad this guy said no. Sounds like this is a legal boundary that needs clarification.
PX Eliezer1
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Zubrowka USA

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Strange thing is, if Chinese government officials wanted to inspect the mobile phones or laptops of arriving travelers, there would be a lot of protest and suspicion.

Of course over there they usually accomplish their goals through poisoned WiFi networks....

nitzguy
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join:2002-07-11
Sudbury, ON

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Its Optics alright...its optics for the CBSA....

Here is the problem they are facing, in this case they are in a no-win scenario...

Lets play 'What if" for a second here...

What if the quebec resident in question even though he had no ties to any criminal organization or criminal wrongdoing just HAPPENED to have I dunno child porn or information on drug trafficking or something else on his phone...

The border officer goes "Go ahead" and then that person goes along and becomes the next terrorist to hit Parliament Hill...

Guess who has egg on their face? That's right the CBSA....Because the CBSA dropped their guard for one second and someone got through...imagine the ****storm that would ensue as a result of that, we would say "How did this person get in? How did they get their information though? Why was that border agent negligent?"...and so on and so forth.

You're right they're going on a wild goose chase 99.999% of the time...but the reality is...you're not personally important to them and they don't care about your belongings, they're just doing their job so that they don't get fired. Because he has a wife and maybe 2 or 3 kids and is just trying to live paycheck to paycheck and keep his family together and housed and clothed and fed....they seem arrogant because you know why?...That's their job to be arrogant...they are the gatekeepers to Canada and I don't give 2 ****s if you're a Canadian and wanting access back to Canada...its not just a free ride.

American border guards are just as nasty....and again for good reason, their job is gatekeeper to the country. If they want to deny you entry to the country for in your opinion "no good reason" that's their prerogative. When I was asked to go for secondary inspection, I did so without question, go through the body scanner, empty out everything, take off my hoodie, unlock my cellphone so he could marvel at the oldness that was my BB Curve...

Did I care that they could see me naked? No....did I feel violated? No....do I care that they probably have a photo of that stored somewhere on a computer hard-drive at some Homeland Security HQ? No....

I have nothing to hide, that's why. I feel like people who are evasive like this have something to hide...and if you have **** that you shouldn't have on your phone then god-damnit erase it before you leave the country!!!

People think that they have an expectation of privacy and they don't....dashboard cameras, GPSes, wireless connectivity cheap cameras that they think provide "home security"...they think all this technology is awesome but it has basically broken down the walls of privacy...to the point where they don't exist...the second you leave your house someone could be recording you because they have a camera in their window or mounted to their house pointed at your house and there isn't a heck of a lot you can do about it.

That's the world we live in...at least the 99% of us who do...and I'm fine with that, I may be in the minority but I'd rather the CBSA agent be "overzealous" (In the opinions of some) vs. being Lax and letting someone in who has broken the law.

lugnut
@dyn.xx.ca

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Personally I haven't crossed an international border since the creation of the TSA and Homeland Security (9/11) but as for what they were looking for and what they could actually nail you for are two separate things.

Sure there's the glamorous stuff like kiddie porn and money laundering and drug trafficking info, but once they sink their teeth in and feel like they've got nothing they'll start grasping at piddly straws like illegal MP3s or ebooks or videos or any other DMCA copyright violations they can throw at you simply for refusing their "request."

Don't forget our "Law and Order Society" translates to "Better protection for Billionaires" these days in most of the "free" (sic) world.

It doesn't matter if he was right or wrong in refusing in this case. They will crucify him and generally make his life a living hell in the courts from now on

Ian1
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join:2002-06-18
ON

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said by nitzguy:

The border officer goes "Go ahead" and then that person goes along and becomes the next terrorist to hit Parliament Hill...

Guess who has egg on their face? That's right the CBSA.

Baloney. It's not the CBSA's job to police the contents of random cellphones and laptops. It's actually nobody's job to do so. And rightly so. The simple act of returning from vacation is not suspicious and grounds for a detailed search. Are you bringing dangerous goods or contraband? Yes? Problem. No? Then get the line moving again.
PX Eliezer1
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Zubrowka USA

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Good points, but the statistical probability is extremely low that this fellow or anyone else picked for a random invasive screening, is a terrorist.

You are right, privacy is going down the drain, and they are even probably monitoring our drains.

But it's still a good effort to try to preserve some semblance of constitutional rights and civil liberties.

It's a narrow line between a free state and a police state.

The US is further ahead down that unfortunate path, what with no-knock warrants, electronic snooping, massive license plate scanning and facial scanning, civil forfeiture seizures, Gitmo, and so forth.

It started with the drug war, got worse with terrorism.

I personally saw the smoke in the sky after 9/11, but I don't want to toss away our rights either.

The US is further ahead down that unfortunate path, maybe it can be a lesson to Canada to slow down a bit.

-----

"1984" was not just about some fictional London, some fictional Party.

"The Handmaid's Tale" is not just some fictional story about desperate Canadians trying to fight off a USA gone mad.

It means us, too.
yyzlhr
join:2012-09-03
Scarborough, ON

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said by Ian1:

said by nitzguy:

The border officer goes "Go ahead" and then that person goes along and becomes the next terrorist to hit Parliament Hill...

Guess who has egg on their face? That's right the CBSA.

Baloney. It's not the CBSA's job to police the contents of random cellphones and laptops. It's actually nobody's job to do so. And rightly so. The simple act of returning from vacation is not suspicious and grounds for a detailed search. Are you bringing dangerous goods or contraband? Yes? Problem. No? Then get the line moving again.

It's the CBSA's job to police the contents that travel through our borders. If that content happens to be stored digitally on your laptop or your cellphone, they should be able to search it. I think we're still missing a key piece of the story here. We need to know why the CBSA felt it was necessary to screen this person's phone. The CBSA doesn't just waste it's time screening random things if they don't have any suspicions.

Also when you cross the border even if you're a citizen of that country you're subject to examination. If there's anything you don't want them to see, don't bring it across the border with you.

Ian1
Premium Member
join:2002-06-18
ON

Ian1

Premium Member

said by yyzlhr:

It's the CBSA's job to police the contents that travel through our borders. If that content happens to be stored digitally on your laptop or your cellphone, they should be able to search it. I think we're still missing a key piece of the story here. We need to know why the CBSA felt it was necessary to screen this person's phone. The CBSA doesn't just waste it's time screening random things if they don't have any suspicions.

We are missing pieces. Which is why it should be up to a court to clarify this point of law. If the CBSA had legitimate reason to be suspicious, I think that would have been noted here. And how do you know the particular CBSA agent doesn't waste time randomly rifling through people's phones?

BonezX
Basement Dweller
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join:2004-04-13
Canada

BonezX

Premium Member

said by Ian1:

said by yyzlhr:

It's the CBSA's job to police the contents that travel through our borders. If that content happens to be stored digitally on your laptop or your cellphone, they should be able to search it. I think we're still missing a key piece of the story here. We need to know why the CBSA felt it was necessary to screen this person's phone. The CBSA doesn't just waste it's time screening random things if they don't have any suspicions.

We are missing pieces. Which is why it should be up to a court to clarify this point of law. If the CBSA had legitimate reason to be suspicious, I think that would have been noted here. And how do you know the particular CBSA agent doesn't waste time randomly rifling through people's phones?

Stanfield is not that big, and not that busy for the most part.

HiVolt
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join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON

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I'm 100% in support of this guy.

I understand of possible searching of digital devices of foreign citizens entering the country if they're suspicious.

But if you're a Canadian citizen returning home, what's their reason for searching private & personal information on a person's phone or laptop?
Proving that a device is functional and not a fake containing contraband or explosive device should be more than enough. In case of a phone, push of a button shows that it's working.

I hope he wins and gets some damages from it. Ridiculous.