But rather than simply hand over the messages, from 20,000 different users, an Ontario judge this week imposed restrictions designed to prevent a “fishing expedition” by police in the Netherlands or any other country. The ruling ensures the data will remain under Canadian control, and not be shared further without a court’s approval. The fear is that unfettered disclosure would expose innocent people to the unjustified attention of police, just because they used an encrypted BlackBerry. “Canada remains the home of this data,” Judge Ian Nordheimer wrote. Unusually, they also kept discovering BlackBerries that had been modified to send only encrypted messages, outside the normal cellphone network.

Source: National Post September 15, 2016 23:37 UTC