SCC finds warrant is required before first digital breadcrumb can be revealed

In a 5-4 split, a majority of the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) concluded in R. v. Bykovets that IP addresses attract a reasonable expectation of privacy, and thus a request by the police for an IP address is a search under section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Charter) requiring prior judicial authorization. This decision effectively expands the scope of the reasonable expectation of privacy by finding that not only the subscriber information associated with IP addresses attracts a reasonable expectation of privacy, but also the IP address itself.

Source: R. v. Bykovets, 2024 SCC 6 (CanLII)