Post Tagged with: "text message"

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Supreme Court of Canada Rules Text Messages May Attract Reasonable Expectation of Privacy

The Supreme Court of Canada has issued a landmark decision concluding that text messages may attract a reasonable expectation of privacy even after they have been sent and received. The case recognizes the importance of electronic communications and the privacy implications of electronic messaging, establishing a standard that is likely to have a significant impact on investigations across the country. Further, the court’s emphasis on a functional approach to privacy in the digital world could have implications that extend well beyond conventional text messaging. The court was divided on the issue: four judges comprised the majority (written by Chief Justice McLachlin), Justice Rowe concurred, and Justice Moldaver wrote a dissent (joined by Justice Cote). The court also released a second decision today involving text messaging which examined the intercept provisions that will be the subject of a future post.

The heart of the case was characterized by the majority in the very first paragraph:

Can Canadians ever reasonably expect the text messages they send to remain private, even after the messages have reached their destination? Or is the state free, regardless of the circumstances, to access text messages from a recipient’s device without a warrant? The question in this appeal is whether the guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure in s. 8  of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms  can ever apply to such messages.

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December 8, 2017 8 comments News

Expert Says Text Message Mark-Up Is 4,900 Percent

Canwest reports that a Canadian researcher has told a U.S. Senate committee that the major telcos mark-up the cost of sending a text-message by as much as 4,900 percent.

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June 17, 2009 7 comments News

Wireless Industry Association Responds to Text-Message Column

The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association responds to my recent column on text-messaging, taking issue with the comment that Canadian consumers pay more, but get less.

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August 13, 2008 8 comments News

Text-Message Fight Obscures Real Consumer Costs

Of all the recent controversies involving Canada’s wireless carriers – and there have been many – my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) argues that the fight over the 15-cent charge for the receipt of text messages must surely rank as the most puzzling. The issue, which generated an enormous amount of attention from politicians, company executives, and consumers, effectively came to a conclusion on Friday after Industry Minister Jim Prentice acknowledged that he was not prepared to intervene.

Scratch below the surface and it is difficult to understand what all the fuss was about. Text messaging has admittedly become an enormously popular form of communication and the new charges feel like an ill-advised cash grab by Bell and Telus. To be fair, however, the charges are also a relatively minor consumer issue given that the overwhelming majority of wireless subscribers are not affected by it.  Moreover, the political reaction reeked of opportunism.  Prentice had endured weeks of criticism from consumer groups across the country over his copyright reform bill and may have been looking for a way to re-make himself as a friend of Canadian consumers by briefly vowing to fight over the issue.

With the saber rattling over text-messaging charges now concluded, the issue should serve as a wake-up call on several festering problems with telecommunications in Canada.

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August 11, 2008 19 comments Columns

Text-Message Fight Obscures Real Consumer Costs

Appeared in the Toronto Star on August 11, 2008 as Text-Message Spat Obscures Costlier Issues Of all the recent controversies involving Canada’s wireless carriers – and there have been many – the fight over the 15-cent charge for the receipt of text messages must surely rank as the most puzzling. […]

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August 11, 2008 Comments are Disabled Columns Archive