A pair of decisions on a landmark case will help keep RCMP surveillance techniques secret, The Globe and Mail reports. Six accused mobsters pleaded guilty to murder conspiracy, ending the possibility of a hearing with the Court of Appeal of Quebec related to “mobile device identifier” technology. The investigation of a 2011 Mafia-related murder led an RCMP team to reveal its organized-crime surveillance operation to local police, who then made arrests. As the case progressed, discovery disclosed the first known Canadian use of an “IMSI catcher,” a portable device used by police surveillance teams to impersonate a cellphone tower, capturing digital signatures of all phones in a given radius, allowing police to identify suspects’ phones by process of elimination. The hearing could have resulted in a binding rule regarding how police use such devices in Quebec.
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