Canadian judge: No warrant needed to see ISP logs

A Superior Court in Ontario, Canada has ruled that IP addresses are akin to your home address, and therefore people have no expectation of privacy when it comes to their online activities being accessed by law enforcement. This means that, in Canada, police can potentially request information from your ISP about online activities, and can do so without a warrant.Your activities on the Internet are akin to your activities out in public — they’re not private and are possibly open for police scrutiny, according to an Ontario Superior Court. The ruling was made by Justice Lynne Leitch on — surprise! — a child pornography case. The judge said that there’s “no reasonable expectation of privacy” when it comes to logs kept by ISPs. Canadians, watch out, because everything you do online could soon be turned into legal fodder, even without a warrant.The case in question came about when, in 2007, police asked Bell Canada to hand over subscriber information for a particular IP address that they suspected of accessing and “making available” child porn online. According to the National Post, the ISP handed over the name and contact information for the account without asking for a warrant, which is apparently typical among ISPs in Canada only if the request is related to a child porn investigation.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/02/canadian-judge-no-expectation-of-privacy-in-online-tasks.arsWhere you’ve been on Net not private, Canadian judge rules
An Ontario Superior Court ruling could allow police to routinely use Internet protocol addresses to find out the names of people online, without any need for a search warrant.Justice Lynne Leitch found that there is “no reasonable expectation of privacy” in subscriber information kept by Internet service providers, in a decision issued this week.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1285658