Cell Phone Searches

The Court of Appeal has recently decided that the search of an unlocked cell phone can be allowed as an incident to an arrest. Given the amount of information most people carry in the phones – phone numbers, photos, pictures, games, passwords, favourite web site, emails and texts. This is information that they want to keep private, if it was a physical item, it could be a journal, calendar, or file cabinet. There is a privacy right in the the journal, file cabinet that is closed, why not a cell phone? Gone are the days when we just used our cell phones to make telephone calls. This ruling does seem difficult to understand given this case and this cell phone. Perhaps the Supreme Court can clarify the privacy rights one should have in their property.