Being on the receiving end of warrants from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)

I regularly advise clients on how to respond to law enforcement and other demands for access to customer or user information. Many of these are routine, using production orders under the Criminal Code of Canada or orders under provincial Missing Persons laws. You look at the order and you can see what is the alleged crime, what is the legal basis and exactly what data is being sought. And you’re satisfied that an independent third party – a judge or a justice of the peace – has scrutinized the order and has found that the balance necessary in section 8 of the Charter has been met. If the request is too broad or seems to have a disproportionate impact on privacy, you can push back. But there’s a kind of warrant that is less commonly seen and which can be very confusing for organizations that are not used to seeing them. So someone from CSIS just called …. Information about the Government of Canada consultation can be found here: