The Court held that a warrantless and surreptitious video recording of private communications violated section 8.

An undercover officer arranged a meeting with Duarte in a rented apartment room where the police had set up a video camera.

In a decision by Cory JA, the Court of Appeal for Ontario found that the video camera did not violate the reasonable expectation of privacy, as a camera was analogized to an extension of memory.

La Forest J, for the majority, found that the surreptitious monitoring by law enforcement constituted an unreasonable search.

In response to this decision, the Parliament of Canada amended the Criminal Code to include provisions on electronic interception of communications, which included judicial authorization where consent is not available, "number recorder warrants" and "tracking warrants".