For four months in 2014, a secret police camera recorded the comings and goings inside a Liberty Village condo building. The camera, which Toronto police installed without a warrant to track gang-related drug dealers, clearly showed the hallway outside two uninvolved units — including a partial view into the home of a woman who was not a target of surveillance. In several instances, the camera recorded her wearing a towel or in her underwear reflected in a mirror inside her front door — resulting in what lawyers are arguing was a serious violation of privacy.The recordings, which police say were taken with the permission of the condo board, are at the centre of an appeal in a case that exposes the current legal “grey zone” around warrantless police surveillance in condo buildings.Does, as the appellants argue, allowing cameras to be secretly installed in hallways without a warrant mean Toronto’s rapidly growing population of condo-dwellers have fewer protections against state surveillance than those who live in a house?“It’s often said that a man’s house is his castle, but what about his or her condominium building? There is uncertainty in the law about whether condominium dwellers enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy in the common areas of their condominium buildings,” said Nader Hasan, a criminal and constitutional lawyer who is not involved in this case. The appeal stems from a large-scale gang investigation that, in part, involved surveillance of the drug trade in condominium buildings around the city. The four men appealing their convictions were all convicted of charges involving gang-related drug-trafficking. In the decision under appeal, R v Brewster, Superior Court Justice Michael Code found that hallways in condo buildings are the equivalent of a sidewalk or street outside a detached house.The fact the suspect was observed in the hallway outside his unit “is no different than observations ...
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