14 DAY TRIAL // Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Assistant Commissioner Joe Oliver told Canadian press in a conference on Tuesday that his institution asked government officials for a law that would allow police officers to force crime suspects to reveal passwords for devices and online accounts.
The RCMP official claims a spike in the number of cases where criminals employ encryption to protect sensitive and possibly incriminating data. RCMP officials are trying to criminalize situations where suspects refuse to cooperate.
The proposal the RCMP made involves oversight, with a judge approving in situations where RCMP officers can force citizens to reveal passwords.
"The victims in the digital space are real," Oliver said in a press conference, cited by CBC. "Canada's law and policing capabilities must keep pace with the evolution of technology."
Oliver's law resolution comes at the same time the Canadian government is holding an open consultation on cyber-security in general.
Government officials are waiting for feedback from citizens and privacy groups on how to devise laws that protect online freedom and privacy at the same time.
The RCMP and BlackBerry were caught in the middle of a controversy in April, when it was revealed that BlackBerry gave RCMP a global decryption key to access data stored on instances of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). Authorities used the master decryption key to access data on a phone at the center of a murder case.