Four of the country's communications companies say they receive thousands of requests for information from police every year.
That information came to light Thursday as witnesses from communications companies testified at the Chamberland Commission looking into the confidentiality of journalistic sources.
Kristi Jackson from Rogers Communications said Quebec police forces have asked for thousands over the last few years.
“Yes, 3,031 separate numbers were requested (by the SQ) between January 1, 2011 and present,” Jackson confirmed, adding that the Montreal police requested “3,946.”
Alain Monfette, the witness from Bell Canada (which owns CTV), said the same, telling the court he received a little more than 3,000 requests from the SQ and more than 1,500 requests from the Montreal police.
Anthony Hemond from Videotron made a similar statement, saying it received“2555 since May 1, 2010” and that he received “1255 requests by the SPVM.”
Sergio Catoni from Telus said they received more than 3,000 requests from the SQ since 2010.
Catoni also said police will ask two to three times a month for what's called a 'tower dump,' when they ask for details about all the calls and messages received by a specific cellphone tower for a specific period.
In downtown Montreal, that can be as many as 10,000 an hour – and that people the police aren't interested in are caught up in that broad request for data.
Catoni said Telus is not comfortable with that.
“Often the police officers know that Telus doesn’t like doing that because we’re giving too much information,” he said.
With that information, police can know who made a call or sent a text, who received it, the date and time it was made and the duration of the call.
Witnesses said police sometimes request information without having a court order.
“It happens fairly often,” said Jackson, adding that police are always told to go through the proper channels.
The hearing came about after La Presse journalist Patrick Lagace and others revealed in October that police tracked their calls and texts.
They're hoping to learn why warrants to monitor them were cleared by the courts.
The Chamberland Commission won't issue any conclusion on the legality of the warrants and won't lay blame – the goal, the commission says, is to improve the system.
