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In the case before the Calgary courts, police were surveilling a suspected drug dealer and a residence believed to be his stash house. Investigators had tapped his cellphone, but while watching the suspect, noticed he was making calls that weren’t showing up on their wiretap.

The Crown told the court that 'the potential capabilities of the device are not a material issue in this trial'

Police ran their cell site simulator to identify what they believed was the suspect’s new phone. When they got a wiretap on that device, it led them to a second suspect, who is now also facing a slew of drug and weapons offences.

The trouble is, cell site simulators are a blunt instrument. Calgary Police told the court that their device is capable of collecting the unique fingerprints of all nearby phones within a 500 metre radius. It can be hard to guarantee, with absolute certainty, that the phone they identified was, in fact, their suspect’s phone. But the Crown wouldn’t disclose anything specific about the cell site simulator itself.

Lawyers for the accused argued to the court that they could not mount a full defence if they couldn’t challenge the technology used to identify their client in the first place.

Crown lawyers argued that details about the specific technology used is sensitive information that, if shared with the court or the public, would compromise future investigations. The Crown told the court that “the potential capabilities of the device are not a material issue in this trial.”

The court disagreed, offering a rare chance to challenge the use of this technology. Justice Harry Van Harten wrote that, to allow the defence to challenge the constitutionality of the wiretaps without providing the details of how those wiretaps were obtained,“would be like inviting someone to a dinner party without saying where it was being held.”