Police challenge against Facebook adjourned

A court challenge by law enforcement in London to speed up the collection of evidence — in particular, social media information — was adjourned Thursday after the Crown decided to obtain the messages through originally proposed methods.

“In the event the court ruled in the Crown’s favour and upheld the production order, we have the view that Facebook wouldn’t deliver the data to the Crown no matter what you decide,” London area assistant Crown attorney Fraser Kelly told Superior Court Justice Renee Pomerance at the Windsor courthouse.

As previously reported in the London Free Press article “Facebook fight in homicide case may be game-changer,” London police sought to acquire Facebook messages to use as evidence at trial for the murder of Raymond Beaver, a 43-year-old-man who was beaten and stabbed to death in his home Oct. 2, 2017.

The timely retrieval of data and messages surrounding this case launched a legal spat between the Crown and Facebook Inc. and Facebook Canada, bringing the case into the hands of Pomerance.

In an attempt to speed up access to the Facebook Messenger texts, London Police issued a production order — a process that would grant police documents within 30 days — against Facebook to obtain the texts involved in the Beaver case. The order application was signed off by Ontario Court Justice John Skowronski last April.

However, Facebook said no, given it’s an American company with its data stored outside of Canada and argued it does not need to comply with a Canadian order, despite the company having a Canadian arm, Facebook Canada, which Facebook Inc. said is simply a marketing company separate from the main giant.

“Facebook Inc. is of the view consistently across the board that it is subject to U.S. law,” said Facebook Inc. lawyer David Fraser. “I don’t think we ever said we aren’t subject to Canadian law — but we’re subject to U.S. law that prohibits the disclosure of this information.”

The social media titan insisted police go through the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), typically needed to obtain cross-border evidence, a process said to be lengthy but one Facebook told the court both the U.S. and Canadian federal government had told the London Police department to do initially.

Much of the Facebook Inc. and Facebook Canada case was addressed out of the public eye, with about 14 hearings either in person or by teleconference since the matter came before court last August.

The hearing was dismissed with no ruling needed on the production order, given the Crown ended up obtaining the messages through an MLAT, and currently has the data needed for its trial to proceed.