Kirsten Thompson writes:
Anyone who has watched Law and Order knows that the police, both here and in the U.S., do not need a warrant to rifle through someone’s curbside recycling bin. This is because that person has abandoned their privacy interest in the contents of the bin. Does the same hold true for items in someone’s computer desktop recycling bin?
Apparently not, according to the B.C. Court of Appeal in R. v. McNeice, 2013 BCCA 98. While putting something by the curb in the real world indicates an abandonment of a privacy interest, the B.C. Court of Appeal has held that doing the same thing in the virtual world is (emphasis added) “consistent with an intent to conceal, and thus to maintain a privacy interest”.
Read more on CanadianAppeals.com