Police Scanners Go Silent
Civilians on scanners will find their access to crime info severely restricted, thanks to new encrypted radio communications.
It’s a growing trend, and the Toronto P.D. in Canada is just one agency among many that will use encrypted communications beginning in May. This means that police scanners will go silent, effectively bringing to an end the way the media has gathered the news.
According to the Toronto Star, anyone who wants to has been able to eavesdrop on Toronto police radio communications. All it takes is a scanner, and these days there are smartphone apps that air near-simultaneous streams of police radio chatter.
The project to replace the Toronto Police Service’s existing analogue radios with encrypted digital radio technology has taken more than five years to implement, at a cost of $35.5 million. According to Mark Pugash, the Toronto Police Service’s director of corporate communications, operational integrity and security is the primary motivation. “This is a trend that has been taking place for some considerable time in policing, nationally and internationally,” he says.
Encrypted radios digitally scramble voices so that only devices specifically programmed to decode those voices can receive and send transmissions. In Toronto, units such as the Emergency Task Force (ETF) already use encrypted radios. Canada’s Radiocommunication Act makes unauthorized decoding of encrypted communications punishable with fines of up to $75,000 and a maximum prison sentence of one year.
According to sources, once the encryption goes into effect, Toronto police will keep the media and public up-to-date via Twitter.
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