From the SCC case noted below

Fish J. —

[1] This case concerns the right of everyone in Canada, including the appellant, to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure. And it relates, more particularly, to the search and seizure of personal computers.



[2] It is difficult to imagine a search more intrusive, extensive, or invasive of one's privacy than the search and seizure of a personal computer.



[3] First, police officers enter your home, take possession of your computer, and carry it off for examination in a place unknown and inaccessible to you. There, without supervision or constraint, they scour the entire contents of your hard drive: your emails sent and received; accompanying attachments; your personal notes and correspondence; your meetings and appointments; your medical and financial records; and all other saved documents that you have downloaded, copied, scanned, or created. The police scrutinize as well the electronic roadmap of your cybernetic peregrinations, where you have been and what you appear to have seen on the Internet — generally by design, but sometimes by accident.



[4] That is precisely the kind of search that was authorized in this case. And it was authorized on the strength of an Information to Obtain a Search Warrant ("ITO") that was carelessly drafted, materially misleading, and factually incomplete. The ITO invoked an unsupported stereotype of an ill-defined "type of offender" and imputed that stereotype to the appellant. In addition, it presented a distorted portrait of the appellant and of his surroundings and conduct in his own home at the relevant time.