In a recent legal decision, an Ottawa judge has ruled that the police must return three cellphones seized from a suspected pedophile. This ruling comes after forensic investigators attempted an astonishing 175 million passcodes in their efforts to unlock the devices.
The case presented a unique challenge to the court, prompting an examination of the balance between individual property rights and the state's legitimate interest in preserving evidence for an ongoing investigation.
The Ottawa Police Service had obtained a warrant in October 2022 based on information about a Google account user uploading images of child pornography. The three phones, central to the investigation, were found to be protected by complex alpha-numeric passcodes, adding an additional layer of difficulty for forensic investigators.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Ian Carter, presiding over the case, was informed that the police's attempts constituted only a fraction of the possible combinations. With more than 44 nonillion potential alpha-numeric passcodes for each phone, the 175 million attempts were deemed "an infinitesimal number" by the judge.
The court heard that forensic investigators employed "brute force" dictionary attacks to unlock the phones. This method involves using specialized software along with a dictionary of passwords that includes English-language words combined with numbers and "leet speak," a modified spelling system popular among gamers and hackers.
Justice Carter's ruling acknowledged the need to balance individual property rights with the state's interest in preserving evidence. The judge highlighted that the phones held no evidentiary value unless the police could successfully unlock them. Carter deemed the odds of success within the requested two-year extension as virtually non-existent and denied the Crown's application to retain the phones.
The judge emphasized that the investigation could continue without the phones, noting that the Ottawa police have already made a formal request to obtain more data from Google. This alternative avenue of investigation was deemed potentially more fruitful than the extensive use of brute force to access the phones' contents.
Comentários