R. v. Jarvis: Voyeurism and Privacy in Public Places
Under section. 162(1)(c) of the Criminal Code the offence of voyeurism is committed where a person surreptitiously observes or makes a visual recording of another person who is in circumstances that give rise to a reasonable expectation of privacy, if the observation or recording is done for a sexual purpose. See R. v. Rudiger , 2011 BCSC 1397 (CanLII) , 244 C.R.R. (2d) 69 , at para. 75 . The voyeurism offence was enacted in 2005 to address public concerns with the rapid advent of technology that could be used to spy on people surreptitiously for sexual purposes. While the offence of voyeurism is almost fifteen years old, there has been relatively few decisions under the section, which makes the Supreme Court of Canada’s release of its unanimous decision in R. v. Jarvis all the more important. In R. v. Jarvis the Supreme Court of Canada has provided a doctrinal framework for determining when circumstances will give rise to a reasonable expectation of privac...