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Canada Privacy News

Canadian Police Are Texting Potential Murder Witnesses (vice.com) 121

Posted by msmash from the privacy-concerns dept.
On Thursday, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) will send text messages to anybody who was in the vicinity of a murder in the hopes that one of them will have information that can help catch the culprit. One of the recipients may even be the killer. Others may wonder how the police obtained their phone number in the first place, or knew where they were on the day in question. From a Motherboard report: The OPP is ramping up its efforts to find the murderer of 65-year-old hitchhiker John Hatch, who was found dead near Erin, Ontario, on December 17, 2015. He was last seen alive the day before, outside Ottawa. Now, the OPP has announced what it's describing as a "new investigative technique" for the force: obtaining the phone numbers of everyone who was in the area where and when Hatch was last seen alive, via a court order, and sending each person a text message directing them to a police website. If they follow those instructions, they'll be asked a series of online questions. According to digital privacy lawyer David Fraser, this technique is known as a "tower dump" -- essentially asking telecom companies for information about everyone who connected to a certain cellphone tower, at a given time. If the police plan on using this technique again, its future uses could have unintended effects, Frasier said.
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Canadian Police Are Texting Potential Murder Witnesses More

Canadian Police Are Texting Potential Murder Witnesses

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  • will they pay for that? even if there are high roaming fees?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luthair ( 847766 )
      You don't typically pay for receiving text messages.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Will they pay for the psychological damage of those texts. Consider they are not taking into account the specific psychological health of the people in question, just, meh fuck em, make it easier for us and will get is that promotion. So mentally challenged person, someone was just murdered near you, oh my god, it could have been you and by the by, yes we are watching you, we know were you were and we know where you are. So morons, how much damage do you think that message would do to a mentally ill indivi

  • You have the right to remain silent (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @05:19PM (#53157923)

    I suggest you use it. There is never anything to gain from talking to the police. Ever. The idea of the policeman as keeper of the peace is dead in Canada as one by one rights in the charter are ignored "for the public good".

    Fortunately the right to remain silent is still valid.

    • I suggest you use it. There is never anything to gain from talking to the police. Ever. The idea of the policeman as keeper of the peace is dead in Canada as one by one rights in the charter are ignored "for the public good".

      Fortunately the right to remain silent is still valid.

      True, there is a possibility that in talking to the police you will inaccurately draw some suspicion towards yourself.

      However, the stronger possibility is that you will accurately direct some suspicion towards the guilty party, and perhaps prevent future crimes.

      I, for one, believe in motives other than pure self-interest.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        When the consequence of "inaccurately draw some suspicion towards yourself" is losing your liberty or your life, why take any risk?

        There are anonymous way to report crime and they are the only acceptable way to do so.

        • When the consequence of "inaccurately draw some suspicion towards yourself" is losing your liberty or your life, why take any risk?

          Because some of us aren't sociopaths.

    • Not that I know much about texting, but how do I know for certain that the text ostensibly from the police is truly from the police? I'm not paranoid, at least not since the Snowdon revelations.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mark-t ( 151149 )
      Canada and the USA are neighbors, but they are different nations, with different laws. The right to remain silent is not as absolute here as it is in the USA.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        You're right, the US right is much weaker. Canada listed it twice just to be sure that it didn't disappear:

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_7_of_the_Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms

        7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

        "In R. v. Hebert the court held that the right to silence was a principle of fundamental justice. Statements of the accused may not be achieved

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Mashiki ( 184564 )

          Article is garbage and completely misses S.1 of the Charter, something you're also missing. S.1 states "guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society." To boil it down, government or courts can make laws that override these rights, or put in place case law judgements if there is a "greater good" for the rest of society. It's one of the big things that makes a lot of charter lawye

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Whibla ( 210729 )

      There is never anything to gain from talking to the police. Ever.

      I have seen this video too, and frankly this attitude appalls me. It's essentially saying "I'll look after myself, and sod the rest of you!"

      As an extreme example: let's say that your neighbour's house was burgled last night. As it happens you were woken by a noise, and saw two individuals loading a van with your neighbour's expensive electronics, and, being a smart cookie, you snapped pictures of the individuals on your mobile phone, and noted down the license plate of their van.

      Question: No reason to talk

  • Video completely related.

    This is going to get messy...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • Investigators might phone you if you don't respond (Score:3, Insightful)

    by innocent_white_lamb ( 151825 ) on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @05:41PM (#53158051)

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... [www.cbc.ca]

    "The force will keep the numbers on file until the murder is solved, officers said at a news conference on Wednesday.

    Investigators will also consider calling the numbers of people who don't respond voluntarily, but they would be required to obtain another court order to do so."

    • You're all going to jail unless one of you confesses!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Expect a wave of bogus calls claiming to be from the police.

      In the UK some criminals pretend to be the police and use the phone system to make their con more believable. People have lost of a lot of money because the "police" told them that criminals had accessed their bank accounts.

    • This is why I don't answer any number I don't recognize, even my own area code, until they leave a message proving I actually want them calling me.

  • So I got this text ... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    But the person I murdered doesn't match that description. xthxbye

  • How could one not assume this to be SPAM? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ffkom ( 3519199 ) on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @05:54PM (#53158105)
    I mean - seriously - if I would receive any kind of text message from a stranger asking me to visit some web site, it wouldn't take my well-trained neural network more than a split second to classify this as either SPAM or SCAM, discarding the message.

    • Especially if they say they're a government body/authority, given the number of scams posing as the police/RCMP, tax agency, etc.

  • Giving them a heads up would go a long way in cutting down the murder rate.

  • Speaking as a Canadian and privacy advocate... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by morethanapapercert ( 749527 ) on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @06:43PM (#53158335) Homepage
    I've read a number of posts thus far and it seems the anti-police contingent is out in force tonight. Many of the paranoid or anti-police comments thus far have been posted by AC, so I don't know what prompts their attitudes.

    In my opinion; Canadian police forces are far less deserving of anti-cop, paranoid rhetoric than US or Latin American forces. In this case, the police obtained a court ordered warrant before asking the telecoms for the tower dump info. This is exactly how the law is supposed to work The police are seeking information that they cannot obtain through the usual personal observation or talking to people one on one and one at a time. Traditional foot work just isn't going to produce the leads they need. They came up with a way to essentially canvas a virtual neighbourhood. Obtaining phone numbers and sending an sms message to everyone who was within a certain area and during a certain time seems to me to be the digital equivalent of knocking doors, asking residents if they've seen anything suspicious.

    The only aspect that I can see where someone might make a legitimate objection is if the police then also use the list of numbers and names as a way to populate their list of suspects. Being a suspect, even if only a routine "talk to you so they can strike your name off the list" would trouble many people. Thing is, that is entirely within the bounds of normal police work. Using data that was legitimately obtained for further uses within the same case is an accepted and necessary part of police work.

    As for myself, I have only two points of concern in this case:

    1) I would want to be assured that the police didn't share this list with anyone else. Other investigations must go and obtain their own warrants. That way if a case might be helped by this data, but itself doesn't merit having a judge issue a warrant, it doesn't get that data. It also makes sure that the police or other authorities don't get handed an easy way to build a database of citizens and the numbers associated with them.

    2) That the police do not retain this data. That way, if a user found in the current data changes his or her phone number down the road, they don't have the police looking at them for a crime committed by someone else who later got that number.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by BitterOak ( 537666 )

      In my opinion; Canadian police forces are far less deserving of anti-cop, paranoid rhetoric than US or Latin American forces. In this case, the police obtained a court ordered warrant before asking the telecoms for the tower dump info. This is exactly how the law is supposed to work

      Generally warrants are obtained against suspects not potential witnesses. It's the scope of the warrant that's disturbing. They even say that one of these people could be the killer, so they're basically treating everyone as a potential suspect merely for having their phone turned on in the vicinity of the crime.

      • They even say that one of these people could be the killer, so they're basically treating everyone as a potential suspect merely for having their phone turned on in the vicinity of the crime.

        "They" is Motherboard, not the OPP.

        Also, even if the OPP said "we're sending a text to everyone who was in the area hoping someone remembers seeing something, oh, and it's possible one of the numbers we text might even be the culprit", there's zero logical connective with "so they're treating everyone as a suspect". No. Even in that narrative, they're treating everyone as witnesses and acknowledging the statistical possibility that one of the numbers belongs to the killer. It's absolutely not the same

        • It's absolutely not the same as "we have this list of numbers, and one of you might have done it, so we're going to question each of you until you produce alibis."

          I think the concern here is the scope of the warrant, not the aggressiveness of the police interrogations.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Mashiki ( 184564 )

        Generally warrants are obtained against suspects not potential witnesses. It's the scope of the warrant that's disturbing. They even say that one of these people could be the killer, so they're basically treating everyone as a potential suspect merely for having their phone turned on in the vicinity of the crime.

        In Canadian law this is completely legal FYI. Hell if you're walking down the street and there was a murder 2 blocks over, and the only information is "the suspect is a black male and accomplice was white male" and you fall into either of those categories, the police can detain you to ensure you're not one of the people who fit the profile of the individuals they're looking for. There's a lot to cover in this but that's the bare minimum that should make sense.

        There have been multiple cases of warrants bei

    • Re:Speaking as a Canadian and privacy advocate... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @08:07PM (#53158641)
      But why does the police even *need* the data? They can just ask the network operator to send the message on their behalf. After all, the message still goes through the network operator, so the goal is accomplished with no unnecessary information revealed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sabriel ( 134364 )

      In my opinion; Canadian police forces are far less deserving of anti-cop, paranoid rhetoric than US or Latin American forces. In this case, the police obtained a court ordered warrant before asking the telecoms for the tower dump info. This is exactly how the law is supposed to work

      While I agree with your emphasis, it's important to understand the US/LA "anti-cop" sentiment you've encountered covers far more than just the constabulary. The fact that a court approved a warrant makes little difference to tho

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Maybe Canadian police are better, but for example the UK police have a long history of bungling investigations and framing people because they are under pressure to get a conviction. Much as I would like to do the right thing, unless I knew I had a watertight alibi and could afford a really good lawyer, I'd keep my mouth shut. The police are just too untrustworthy and when they lie/screw up there are no consequences for them, only for you.

  • What is the first thing smart criminals, corrupt police, private detectives and the press will do?
    Hack it and get the background stories to each person. Create a reason for a face to face interview with real details from the initial police contact.
    If they saw something its a great story or information to sell.
    The UK tried to keep digital secrets about case work in the past and the files got sold to anyone with cash in real time.
    "Journalists caught on tape in police bugging" (21 September 2002 )
    https [theguardian.com]

  • to do precisely what people like me fear.

    Let's say that instead of texting potential witnesses, they find someone upon whom they can pin the crime.

    No leads, no suspects but they find that someone just happened to be in the areas with a criminal record.

    LK

  • I was in San Francisco and I was driving up Sloat Boulevard from the beach, once, a few years ago, and I witnessed an auto collision, but didn't stop because I was going the other way and there were plenty of witnesses.

    A few weeks later I got a call on my call phone from someone who identified themselves as a detective for the SFPD. He asked me if I had seen the accident and I told him that I had, and what I had seen.

    Perhaps I was foolish to assume that he WAS a SFPD detective.

    Never heard anything more but

  • So you receive an SMS to visit a site "from the police". If visit the site, and your Windows computer *might* get infected with a malware to spy on you. The police also asks your name, and correlates your name *with* your phone, and with your IP address of the next few days or weeks. Seem a pretty wise idea...

  • I get email and phone calls all the time "From" the FBI, the IRS, and the U.S. Marshall's Office telling me I have not paid my taxes or I've been otherwise behaving badly, there is a bench warrant for my arrest, and that I must pay the taxes and/or fines immediately or I will be carted off to jail. "Go to the nearest 7-11 and buy a Moneygram card in the amount of $$$$ and email the card number to our offices at..."

    I'd be happy to help actual law enforcement in an investigation, but I'm afraid I will need s

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