If I get a ticket for distracted driving, don’t police need to access my phone records to prove that I was using my phone? What if I was holding it for a second but I wasn’t texting anyone? How can they tell? – Mike, Victoria
When it comes to charging you for distracted driving in Canada, it’s the officer’s call.
Police don’t need cellphone records; they only need to prove that they saw you holding or watching your phone, a criminal defence lawyer said.
“The officer’s visual observation of a person using their phone is considered to be sufficient evidence. They don’t need [phone] data,” said Kyla Lee, a Vancouver-based criminal defence lawyer. “The logic is that cellphones are so ubiquitous, that it’s unlikely an officer would be mistaken about what they saw.”
In most provinces, including British Columbia, distracted driving laws ban holding or touching a…
