Ontario Provincial Police are using powerful phone-hacking spyware to get inside suspects’ devices, and they are so determined to keep the tech secret that they are willing to let major criminal cases collapse rather than reveal how it works.
According to a Toronto Star report, a court document filed in Windsor Superior Court shows the Crown may walk away from prosecutions entirely rather than disclose the vendor and capabilities of what police call “on-device investigative tools,” or ODITs.
The software goes way beyond a standard wiretap. It can download photos, read encrypted messages, record keystrokes, and even remotely switch on a phone’s microphone and camera without the owner knowing.
The tech first surfaced during an auto-theft investigation that led to 23 arrests and $9 million in recovered vehicles. Defense lawyers are now challenging the warrant’s constitutionality, arguing police withheld key information from the judge who signed off on it, including a secret agreement to drop the case if courts order them to name the spyware vendor.
Civil liberties groups are not happy, as expected. Tamir Israel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association told the Toronto Star that if secrecy prevents courts from properly assessing the software, “then these tools are inappropriate for police investigations, and police should not be using them.”
The spyware operations are run through the Joint Technical Assistance Centre (JTAC), a provincially funded unit drawing from the OPP and police services across Ontario. JTAC requires agencies to sign an agreement to potentially drop cases rather than expose the private company behind the software.
The RCMP, facing similar scrutiny, said “to be clear, ODITs are used extremely rarely and in limited cases.” Experts have previously told a parliamentary committee that targeting a single device can cost as much as a cool $500,000.
Back in March of last year, a major investigation by Toronto-based digital watchdog group, The Citizen Lab, raised serious questions about police surveillance in Ontario, pointing to potential links between local law enforcement and a sophisticated mercenary spyware tool.
The report, which looked into the global operations of Israel-based spyware company Paragon Solutions, suggested that the Ontario Provincial Police may be a customer of the firm. Paragon sells a powerful mobile surveillance tool called Graphite, which is designed to covertly access instant messaging applications on targeted devices.
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