Electronic Device Searches

Updated: November 21, 2025

In August 2025, we made access to information and freedom of information requests to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), and Vancouver Police Department (VPD). We requested information on their policies and procedures for the search and seizure of electronic devices.

Status of Requests

Responses

Vancouver Police Department

The VPD provided a staged response:

• October 3, 2025: Two pages from its Regulation and Procedures Manual (RPM).
• November 19, 2025: A list of vendors that provide tools used by its Digital Forensic Unit and a table showing how many searches were conducted per year. We still hope to receive technical documentation, manuals, training materials, promotional materials, contracts, and purchase orders under 2(b) of the initial request.

October 3, 2025

The VPD provided two pages from its Regulation and Procedures Manual (RPM):

• RPM 1.7.6(i) Seizure of Recording Equipment and/or Images at Crime Scene
• RPM 1.9.19 Seizing Digital Media, Cryptocurrency, and Electronic Devices

We will provide a summary of those documents at a later date.

November 19, 2025

The VPD provided a list of vendors that provide tools used by its Digital Forensics Unit (DFU):

• Cellebrite
• Magnet Forensics
• MSAB (Micro Systemation AB)
• SCG Canada
• Digital Intelligence
• Arsenal Recon
• XWays
• Final Data
• Passware
• Deepspar
• OpenText

VPD broke out its searches into three categories of search authorities:

• Judicial authorization (90%+)
• Consent (9%+)
• Coroner’s Act (1%)

VPD also provided a table breaking down the number of searches conducted by DFU each year. It notes that these figures represent the number of times a tool was used, not the number of devices. For example, a server with 3 SSDs would count as 1 entry in evidence, but would count as 3 searches in this table.

Original Request

This is what we asked for:

All records from 2020 to present relating to the search or seizure of electronic devices, including but not limited to smartphones, computers, tablets, and storage media. This includes, without limitation:

Policies and Procedures

• Policies, procedures, guidelines, and criteria governing the targeting, authorization, or conduct of searches or seizures of electronic devices.
• Policies and procedures regarding the requesting of passwords, passphrases, biometrics, or other access credentials from device owners or users, including procedures for addressing refusals.
• Policies governing the retention, return, or disposal of seized electronic devices.
• Policies governing the retention, use, deletion, or sharing (with other agencies or governments) of data copied or extracted from electronic devices.
• Policies and procedures relating to the accessing of data stored on cloud services through applications or logged-in accounts on electronic devices during or after a search or seizure.

Tools and Technical Capabilities

• Records describing or relating to software or hardware tools used to conduct searches or seizures of electronic devices, including tools used to bypass encryption, biometrics, passwords, passphrases, or other security measures.
• For each such tool, any manuals, technical documentation, training material, promotional material, contracts, purchase orders, or other records.

Privacy and Oversight

• Privacy Impact Assessments or similar assessments, reviews, or reports relating to:

  • the search or seizure of electronic devices;
  • the requesting of passwords, passphrases, biometrics, or other access credentials;
  • the accessing of cloud data via electronic devices;
  • the retention, use, or sharing of device data.

Statistics

• Statistical records, reports, or summaries showing:

  • the number of times access credentials (passwords, passphrases, biometrics) were requested from device owners or users;
  • the number of times such requests were refused;
  • the number of times hardware or software tools were used to facilitate searches or seizures of electronic devices or the data on them.

Posts

• 2025-11-28 VPD - Electronic Device Search FOI Request
• 2025-11-12 Electronic Device Search Requests (August 2025)