Criminal lawyers and commentators were pleased to see the Supreme Court decide that police require a warrant to obtain the personal information of internet users from companies providing the. A police investigation had determined that illegal pornography was stored at a particular computer address and they obtained the name and address of the person associated with the account for internet service for that computer. The Supreme Court held that the information in question was protected by the Charter due to privacy rights of subscribers and that judicial authorization was required for the police to obtain the information from the internet service provider. As is often the case when a ruling is issued on a new point of law, the court held that, even though the evidence was illegally obtained, its use was permitted in the particular case under appeal. However, in future cases such evidence would generally be excluded in criminal trials unless it was obtained through a search warrant.
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