The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in R v. Jarvis, 2019 SCC 10 (Jarvis) establishes a robust approach to individual privacy rights. The Court considered whether a high school teacher committed the criminal offence of voyeurism when he filmed his female students with a hidden camera. The decision is important as it opens the door for courts to apply Canada’s constitutional privacy framework to alleged invasions of privacy as between individuals. Below, we provide an overview of the decision and canvass a few of its potential implications outside of the criminal law context.
Background
The accused, Mr. Jarvis, was a high school teacher. He used a camera concealed inside a pen to make video recordings of female students while they were engaged in ordinary activities in common areas of the school. Most of the videos focused on the faces and upper bodies of the female students, particularly their chests. The students were not aware that they were being recorded by the accused, nor did they consent to the recordings. As a result, Mr. Jarvis was charged with voyeurism contrary to section 162(1) of the Criminal Code.
Although Mr. Jarvis admitted to surreptitiously recording the videos without the students’ consent, the lower courts disagreed about whether the students were in “circumstances that give rise to a reasonable expectation of privacy”—a necessary component of the voyeurism offence.
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