National security cited as B.C. drone engineer's devices seized
CBC
A B.C. Supreme Court judge has granted an extraordinary order to seize electronic devices from a former employee of a Lower Mainland company specializing in anti-drone technology — citing fears China or Russia might be trying to access military secrets.
Documents contained in a partially sealed civil court file detail a scene in early September in which nine people — including bailiffs, lawyers, and representatives of Burnaby-based Skycope Technologies — descended on the man's home to seize laptops, phones and storage cards.
Skycope got the order against its former employee — known as XL — in a closed-door hearing where the company alleged the electrical engineer had handed a foreign competitor confidential information sought by unfriendly state actors.
"It is significant in this particular case that the potential harm from the disclosure of information is not limited only to [Skycope Technologies]," Justice Neena Sharma wrote in her ruling.
"I also have evidence of the potential harm to Canada's national security interests."
Skycope is suing XL in civil proceedings aimed at restraining him from disclosing the company's secrets and requiring him to delete and destroy all confidential information in his possession.
Redacted copies of the file have only recently been made public after the order to enter XL's home was issued without his knowledge. The engineer was handed a list of lawyers to contact at the same time he was given a copy of the order to cough up his devices.
In a statement to the CBC Tuesday, the lawyer XL called — Ross McGowan — said XL "both denies any wrongdoing and denies any intention of committing any wrongdoing."
The case is grounded in the competitive world of cutting-edge anti-drone technology — the business of "detecting, identifying and neutralizing drones which enter unauthorized airspace."
In an affidavit, Skycope boss Hamidreza Boostanimehr described his firm's "sector-leading" technology. Engineers have cracked the radio frequency protocols of hundreds of drones — building a highly-treasured "drone library" of devices Skycope can identify and defeat.
"Drones have a wide variety of applications. They are used by hobbyists. One might see flying a drone in a public park, but there are also many commercial and industrial users," Boostanimehr wrote.
"There are also many more sinister uses for drone technology: drones can interfere with airspace at airports and wreak havoc with air traffic control; they can remotely drop contraband behind the walls of a correctional facility; they can carry out air strikes on targets both military and civilian, and they facilitate illegal surveillance among other things. Those looking to combat those uses form a substantial portion of our end users."
XL was hired in 2018 after graduating from Dalhousie University with a PhD in electrical and computer engineering. Boostanimeh said he went on to play an "integral part in adding many drone models to our drone library."
On Aug. 16, XL resigned his position, allegedly telling Boostanimeh he would be getting a 50 per cent raise in a company he claimed was "not an anti-drone company in the way they represented themselves."