Well, it was more than that. They wanted to know every cellphone transmission that had gone through the tower. In addition, they wanted the subscriber information linked to those cellphone numbers from the companies, they wanted credit card and billing information, and they wanted to know who those 43,000 people who had just been in that part of the city people were calling,.
After Rogers and Telus pushed back, the police narrowed the scope of their warrants, saying, “Never mind. This is all we want. Now don't take us to court.” They tried actually to get the case thrown out on the basis that they had narrowed the scope of their warrants and therefore the charter issues weren't raised. The court decided to hear it anyway.
It's a very strong decision. In it the court is basically saying that we need guidelines for judges who are issuing these types of orders. The police need to be very careful about what they're searching for. We shouldn't be allowing fishing expeditions. The information sought went way beyond what was required. There should be a different approach to it.
The other thing that the judge said at the end of his decision, about an issue that had been raised by Telus and Rogers, was that once all of this information is in the hands of police after these search warrants are issued and the police collect the information, there are no rules in the Criminal Code, PIPEDA, or any statute as to what happens to that information. Is it kept forever? Is it used for other purposes? Is it just stored in a database somewhere, where there might be a data breach of credit card information and other data?
The judge said this is not for us; this is for Parliament to deal with. The court can't create guidelines around that.
This is an issue if police are going to be collecting huge volumes of information. What happens to it and what are the guidelines around disposal of that information once the purpose for its collection disappears?