In an op-ed for Global News, Thompson Rivers University's Robert Diab asks if handing over one’s password to the police is a form of self-incrimination or a violation of the right to silence. He looks at the 2019 case R v. Shergill in which police obtained a warrant to search the phone of the accused but couldn’t open it without a password. The court was asked to compel the accused to open his phone claiming that while a password is a form of testimony, the data on the phone is not. The judge disagreed, citing the data on a phone is closely tied to the password and that in providing that information to the police, the accused creates the evidence against them.
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