Facebook evidence access delaying Nova Scotia court cases

Facebook is all about instantly sharing your experiences, but one lawyer says the company isn't as quick to share evidence for court cases. 

Legal aid lawyer Megan Longley says many of her cases involve comments or messages made on social media, but recovering that information from Facebook can be difficult.

"The only way to access that would be through Facebook headquarters in California, which involves a court order at the national level in Canada that then gets sent to the States for disclosure orders," says Longley, the managing lawyer of Nova Scotia Legal Aid's youth justice office.

That can take months, even up to a year, she says.

"Trials can simply not be delayed indefinitely while we wait to get this kind of information," she says. "I think the more prevalent social media is and becomes as evidence in cases, the more of that we're going to see."

Longley said in some cases trial dates are pushed back and people have wait to have their day in court. 

She said sometimes information can be printed off Facebook and presented to the court. However, anything that's been removed or deleted from Facebook needs to be sought from the company.

Police say social media sites cooperative

Halifax police, however, say they have a good relationship with social media sites.

"There is a process in place, it does take time unfortunately and it's just the way the business goes," Sgt. Pierre Bourdages said. "We're talking eight to 10 weeks before getting information back."

That evidence is then passed to the defence, which needs time to review it. Boudages wouldn't say if he believes the process should be sped up. 

"I don't think it's our position to comment on that. There is a process in place, the main thing here is that it involves two countries, two different legal systems," Bourdages said. 

"Thankfully, with our allies in the United States, we do have some reciprocal agreements in place which allow U.S. law enforcement and Canadian law enforcement to cooperate together and obtain information from both sides of the border." 

Facebook says it responds to valid court orders

A Facebook spokesperson said the company is committed to helping law enforcement, but it rejects any requests it deems too broad or vague.

The company will also only provide information if there is a valid court order. 

The spokesperson said it's unusual for the company to take months to provide information and Facebook usually responds very quickly once it has a court order.

The company does not release details on how long it takes to provide information to investigators.

But it says between July 2014 and December 2014 it received 279 requests for information from Canadian law enforcement. Some data was handed over to Canadian authorities in 57.71 per cent of those cases.