ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of developments in Canadian and US jurisprudence and focuses on law-enforcement access to personal data on the internet. Courts in both Canada and the United States embrace the right to privacy as a fundamental value essential to their respective democratic systems. Free and equal access to high-speed broadband internet is recognised in principle in both countries. Under the Canadian Telecommunications Act, internet service providers are treated like utilities and precluded from giving “undue or unreasonable preference” to one application or online service over another and from influencing the content transmitted over their networks. Fundamental guarantees of freedom of speech and expression of course apply to the internet. In 1997, the US Supreme Court held that the government can no more restrict a person’s access to words or images on the internet than it can snatch a book out of someone’s hands or cover up a nude statue in a museum.
