Tracking of journalist highlights need for guidance to courts: privacy czar
OTTAWA — Police surveillance of a Montreal journalist’s smartphone suggests a need for clearer federal guidance to the courts, Canada’s privacy czar says.
Parliament has a role to play in instructing the courts on when to grant police a warrant to obtain sensitive data, privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien told a House of Commons committee on Tuesday.
“This is a very worrisome issue,” Therrien said under questioning at a meeting of the Commons information, ethics and privacy committee, which is conducting a review of the federal Privacy Act.
Montreal-based La Presse newspaper said this week it had learned at least 24 surveillance warrants were issued for columnist Patrick Lagace’s iPhone this year at the request of city’s police service.