Even if police forces are successful in seeking legal measures compelling people to give up smartphone and computer passwords, law-abiding Calgarians won't have to worry about officers demanding them, says the head of the Calgary force's technology unit.

"We wouldn't be able to compel them to say, 'hey, give us your password,' it would be a judge who would order them," Staff Sgt. Ryan Jepson of the technical operations section told the Eyeopener on Wednesday.

In no way shape or form are police going to be walking up to people and saying, 'hey, give us your passwords.' This would have to go through a judicial process."

A resolution was passed this week at the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) conference in Ottawa, asking for new legal measures that would compel people to reveal their electronic passwords.

The order would have to come from a judge and be used in serious cases to ensure community safety, said Jepson.

"We respect the privacy of individuals as does the CACP, and recognize the importance of judicial oversight and balancing that public safety with privacy interests," he said.

David Christopher, with the advocacy group OpenMedia, earlier told CBC the proposed measure would be unconstitutional in his view.

"Even if someone was guilty of something, only a tiny percentage of that information would be in any way relevant to an investigation, so it fails the proportionality test," he said.

"Canadians have protections against self incrimination, Canadians have a right to stay silent so certainly forcing someone to hand over the password breaks those rules and that's why this is clearly unconstitutional. And in some ways I'm surprised the police chief would come out with something quite so extreme."

But Jepson said police are simply trying to keep pace with technological advances.

"In light of the criminal use of encryption technologies, we require a mechanism that we can access that data, and currently we don't have that mechanism," he said.

"This is not mass surveillance, this is not something where we're looking to get everybody's information. This is in targeted instances, serious criminal cases. Cyber criminals do protect themselves through the use of encryption technologies so this is some way for us to try and keep pace."

With files from the Eyeopener