Earlier this morning, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled on a recent case before them which examined the legality of voluntary warrantless disclosure of subscriber information from an internet service provider (ISP) to law enforcement. Matthew David Spencer was charged and convicted after a police officer tracked illegal child pornography file downloads to his IP address. The police officer was able to obtain Spencer’s real identity – without a search warrant – by asking his ISP (Shaw) for the customer information attached to that IP address which then allowed the police to track Spencer down.
