In a period of 2 months, Toronto police and RCMP officers have swept over 20,000 bystanders by using “Stingray” surveillance technology. These were located at the malls, toy shops and public parks also.
Toronto Police Sweep:
In the year 2014 investigation, police have requested for the cell phone of 11 suspects. After that, they established a stingray at nearly three dozen locations such as Dufferin mall, Vaughan mall, Kensington market, Trinity Bellwoods Park, a toy store ‘R’, and at the middle of Yorkville. Notably, this stingray is also known as IMSI catcher.
In this technological era, the raw data logs used in the investigation devices are remarkable. These IMSI catchers capture one distinctive identifier from all the cell phones at one location.
Noteworthy, police use the data to identify the cell phone of a suspect but the problem with IMSI is they capture the data of even non-suspicious citizens which is not good.
Canadian Police and agencies have prevented viable details and will not accept owing one. In the year 2017, it’s for the time that RCMP accepted using it.
A main drug and gun investigation which is known as Project Battery or Project Rx in the year 2014 was included in it. As concluded, police carried 50 raids and arrested 112 people in which drug trafficking, arms possession and killing was also included.
As investigated, RCMP officers operated the device as requested by the Toronto police. Noticeably, Police had the warrant to use it.
3rd Party Appeals:
While four targets are appealing that police has manipulated the judge regarding the powers of IMSI catchers. Officers have itself broken the policies to lower the effect of the 3rd party.
RCMP says that these devices do not collect the private information of users such as calls, texts and emails. Additionally, spokesman of both the sides said that the information collected by these devices and its usage is always done by keeping laws and judicial authorities in the mind.
Reportedly, police should seek permission from the judge in order to get the details related to the IMEI number.
Moreover, Crown hasn’t answered the appellants’ claim until now. In a pretrial charter challenge, a judge has announced that the mistakes regarding the use of IMSI catcher are immaterial.
In the year 2017, Canada’s privacy commissioner investigated the use of IMSI catchers by RCMS. At that time, Mounties provided an interim policy defining the usage of collected data.
Stats:
According to the logs, on 18th March and 23rd March 2014, police installed these devices around 3 dozen locations. At all the locations, the device logged 25000 captures.
On 16th April, targeting Ken Ying Mai, officers establishes IMSI catcher four times in a row.
Statements:
Chris Parson a researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab said, “These are tools of mass surveillance. They are very distinct from traditional wiretaps. He added, “they affect hundreds or thousands of people very easily and quickly when you’re in a major urban environment.”
According to the court documents, the people sergeant who got the warrant hasn’t used the device before. Therefore, he was unaware of the protocol. He just copies pasted the wording used in a previous warrant.
Additionally, Parsons said, “The fact that we don’t know the extent to which law enforcement is using these is incredibly problematic. These are intrusive devices.”
Whereas an RCMP spokesman said that the force is not opposing the requirement of reports and will release the stats related to the usage of the device as soon as possible.
