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The Federal Court is Canada's national trial court which hears and decides legal disputes arising in the federal domain. The Court is based in Ottawa, and its members travel throughout Canada to hear cases within its national jurisdiction, thereby providing convenient access to justice to all Canadians.

 
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Ottawa, May 14, 2026 – A public version of the confidential Order and Reasons with citation 2026 FC 242 was issued today by the Honourable Justice Patrick Gleeson of the Federal Court:

IN THE MATTER OF AN APPLICATION BY […] FOR WARRANTS
PURSUANT TO SECTIONS 12 AND 21 OF THE CANADIAN
SECURITY INTELLIGENCE SERVICE ACT, RSC 1985, c C-23 AND IN
THE MATTER OF ISLAMIST TERRORISM AND […]

Summary: To support an application for warrants brought pursuant to sections 12 and 21 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act [CSIS Act], the Canadian Security Intelligence Service [CSIS] relied in part upon Collected Exploitable Material [CEM] received from a foreign agency partner. CEM includes Bulk CEM – in the context of this application, physical digital devices of potential intelligence value – and Processed CEM – reporting derived from Bulk CEM which has been processed to identify information of intelligence value.

The core issue before the Court was whether the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [Charter] applies to the collection of shared CEM, its receipt by CSIS, or CSIS’s use or exploitation of that CEM.

The Court concluded that the Charter does not apply to, and specifically, section 8 of the Charter is not engaged by, the collection of CEM by foreign agency partners in the course of their conduct of coalition military operations in a foreign state; CSIS’s receipt of Processed CEM from a foreign agency partner and CSIS’s subsequent use of that Processed CEM; and CSIS’s receipt of Bulk CEM from a foreign agency partner.

However, the Court found that the Charter was of application, and section 8 of the Charter privacy interests were engaged, where CSIS seeks to exploit Bulk CEM by accessing or inspecting the contents of the forensic copy of a digital device in furtherance of a domestic investigation involving a person who has a nexus to Canada. In so concluding, the Court relied upon criminal law jurisprudence recognizing the markedly different privacy interests that arise in the context of electronic devices (R v Vu, 2013 SCC 60).

In the context of the application, CSIS received forensic copies of four electronic devices from a foreign agency partner. The Court determined that the search of this Bulk CEM was more than minimally intrusive and required prior judicial authorization.

Lastly, the Court concluded that CSIS’s holdings of Bulk CEM assessed as being threat-related are not subject to the “dataset” regime provided for in sections 11.01 to 11.25 of the CSIS Act.

The decision is posted on the News Bulletins page of the Federal Court website.

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