Police have the authority to take mobile phones into custody and examine their contents during criminal investigations, subject to legal procedure and court orders, Police Spokesman ASP F.U. Wootler said on Tuesday.
The statement was reported by the Daily Mirror, which says Wootler was addressing the question of whether police can examine a citizen’s mobile phone.
What he described
Any such action, Wootler said, must be based on information relevant to an investigation and carried out in accordance with the law. Where a phone becomes relevant, police may take the device into custody, produce it before a court as an exhibit, and have its contents examined for evidence.
The practical reason he gave for the court’s involvement is technical rather than constitutional:
“In such instances, we often require expert analysis or an examination of the device’s contents. Therefore, it is necessary for us to act in accordance with court orders.”
The powers are exercised under the Police Ordinance and the Code of Criminal Procedure, he said, particularly when investigating serious offences. He pointed to mobile phones being used in connection with drug trafficking and the illegal circulation of firearms, and said examining relevant devices helps investigators gather evidence.
The limit he drew
Wootler was explicit that the power is not a general one.
“In principle, we operate based on court orders. Nevertheless, we must take the necessary measures, in accordance with the Police Ordinance and the Code of Criminal Procedure, to prevent offences.”
Police did not consider it necessary to examine the mobile phones of every citizen in the country, he said. The stated objective was maintaining public peace and preventing crime.
Why the question is being asked now
The filing does not say what prompted the question, and it makes no reference to pending legislation. But it arrives in a month when police powers are under unusually direct scrutiny.
The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka called on 21 October for the Prevention of Organised Crime Bill to be withdrawn, assessing it as “wholly incompatible” with the constitution’s fundamental-rights chapter. Among the concerns it identified were detention ordered through the executive, the breadth of the Bill’s definition of “serious crime,” and arbitrary surveillance. The Bar Association of Sri Lanka separately sought the Bill’s withdrawal on the same date.
That context is this desk’s, not the Daily Mirror’s. Nothing in the filing links the spokesman’s remarks to either Bill, and readers should not infer that it does.
Not reported
The filing does not say which court issues such orders, at what stage of an investigation, or whether a suspect must be charged first. It does not address whether a phone can be seized before an order is obtained and examined afterwards, what happens to devices belonging to people never charged, how long data is retained, or whether a person can refuse to unlock a device. No figure is given for how many phones have been examined under these provisions.
No other verified newsroom had filed on the statement at the time of writing — a domain-restricted search across Ada Derana, NewsFirst, Hiru, Daily News, Colombo Gazette, The Island, Daily FT and EconomyNext returned no matching report. This article is therefore single-sourced to the Daily Mirror.
