On December 8, 2017, the Supreme Court of Canada released a landmark decision on text message privacy, R v Marakah. In it, the Court held that individuals can have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their sent text messages which reside on someone else’s phone. While this case involved SMS text messages, the Court made it clear that its judgment would extend to other person-to-person electronic communication platforms, including Apple iMessage, Google Hangouts, and Blackberry messenger. The Court’s judgment will have significant implications for how the police and regulatory bodies conduct their investigations.
Stockwoods partners, Gerald Chan and Nader R. Hasan, represented the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association as an intervener before the Supreme Court.
You can read and listen to Gerald’s comments on the Court’s decision in The Lawyers’ Daily, Vice News, and CTV News.
Gerald and Nader also represented the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association in the companion appeal, R v Jones, where the Court held that the police require a Criminal Code production order to obtain historical text messages from a telecommunications provider.
