Warrant demand sparked data drop
Fewer requests from police after Supreme Court ruling, new report from Rogers says
OTTAWA— Rogers Communications saw a sharp drop in police requests for their customers’ private information after they started requiring warrants, new numbers show.
Rogers received113,655 requests for their customers’ information from law enforcement and government agencies in 2014. That’s around 61,000 fewer requests than in 2013, the first year Rogers released the numbers publicly.
The drop is almost completely accounted for in 58,400 fewer “customer name and address” requests, which allowed police to access a range of Canadians’ private information without a warrant.
“It looks like the decrease in warrantless requests has not been replaced with an increase in warranted requests,” said Ken Engelhart, Rogers’ senior vice-president of regulatory affairs, in an interview Thursday.
“Doing an investigation is like doing anything else, you have costs and you have benefits. And I suppose if the cost of receiving some information are very, very low you’ll request a bunch of warrantless data, because why not?”
Of the 113,655 total requests, the vast majority (71,501) came with a warrant or a court order. Emergency requests from police increased slightly to 10,016, and warrantless customer name and address requests came in at 29,438.
Rogers flat out denied 2,278 requests, the company reported.
Engelhart said all of those warrantless requests came in before a June 2014 Supreme Court decision limited the practice. Known as the Spencer decision, the court unanimously ruled police must obtain a judge’s approval to request basic subscriber information — details such as names, addresses, phone numbers and IP addresses.
While that information may seem harmless in isolation, Canada’s privacy watchdog has reported it can be combined with other information to create a detailed profile of Canadian citizens.
Shortly after the Spencer ruling, Rogers announced they would require a warrant for all requests, other than emergency situations.
The scope of warrantless requests came to light in April 2014, when it was revealed nine telecom and Internet companies were asked to turn over their customers’ information1.2 million times in 2011 alone.
Last year, Rogers was the first of the “big three” telecoms to release a transparency report on how often they’re asked to turn over their customers’ data to government and police agencies.
TELUS followed shortly thereafter, and smaller companies such as SaskTel and TekSavvy have released similar reports.
Of Canada’s largest telecoms, only Bell Canada has refused to release details about how often they turn over their customers’ information to police. Bell has refused repeated interview requests on the subject.
In a prepared statement, Bell spokesman Jason Laszlo said the company wants “clear guidance” from the government on what information they can release.