Tòa án Canada tạm dừng cuộc điều tra giám sát chứng khoán theo kiểu "câu cá", giới hạn quyền riêng tư và tuân thủ là ở đâu?

【币界】Canada’s Court of Appeal recently made a quite interesting ruling—the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) was directly denied a document request by the court during an investigation into a leading exchange.

The situation was as follows: OSC requested this platform to produce all internal communication records related to Canada over the past two and a half years, including correspondence between related parties. After reviewing, the court stated that this request was “shockingly broad” and violated Section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms—which is designed to prevent unreasonable searches.

The court’s reasoning was clear: participants in the capital markets do indeed need to accept regulation, and their privacy expectations are naturally lower than those of ordinary individuals. However, this does not mean regulatory agencies can demand unlimited access. Investigations can be initiated without evidence of wrongdoing, but the scope of documents must reasonably relate to the investigation’s purpose; a “carpet bombing” approach is not acceptable.

What is also noteworthy is the court’s stance on encrypted communication tools like Signal. OSC seemed to imply that this platform’s use of auto-deleting messages was an attempt to evade regulation, but the court explicitly stated: using encryption tools does not imply wrongdoing. Privacy protection should not be automatically equated with suspicion. This is an important signal for the entire industry—compliance and privacy can coexist.

This ruling effectively draws a line on regulatory authority and reminds enterprises facing cross-border investigations: when faced with overly broad demands, you have the right to say no.