Hello everyone, as you may know, all public services have gone Encrypted P25. (Fire, NLHS, RNC, RCMP, Sheriff, Campus Enforcement, HSC, St Clare's, PVT, and others). We/I don't believe everything needs to be full time encryption, and we/I have written a letter to PRCO voicing concerns about this, from an interoperability, accountability, transparency, and public trust standpoint. Open to suggestions, and let me know what you all think. Merry Christmas & 73 de Aaron VO1IV
28 December 2025
Provincial Radio Communications Office
[
PWRS@gov.nl.ca](mailto:
PWRS@gov.nl.ca)
45 Majors Path, St. John’s, Newfoundland
Canada
To Whom It May Concern:
We (defined as scanner users, ham radio operators, radio hobbyists, and the general public) are asking the Provincial Radio Communications Office, and the government of Newfoundland and Labrador to not encrypt all public safety radio communications in the province on the inter-provincial P25 radio system, that was built and maintained by Bell Radio on behalf of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.
We feel that we have a right to monitor the communications of the services our tax dollars pay for, including but not limited to the communications of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, NLHS, and others. It adds a level of public accountability, transparency, integrity, and further more, encryption directly affects our abilities to properly protect ourselves, and/or our families if we choose to monitor these communications. We want the ability to know that there is a potential drunk driver heading our way, a search and rescue operation taking place, a fire, a serious event, a major collision, or other safety related incidents ahead so we can safely avoid it, and keep tabs on what is really happening in our area. Besides local news outlets the people have no way of knowing what is going on, due to media platforms social or otherwise not reporting events correctly or in a timely manner. By going full time, strapped AES256 encryption, the ability for media outlets to report real time information has been dramatically reduced. In our opinion, full time encryption is taking away our ability to monitor these communications, and ultimately denying us access to information on a service that we the people are expected to pay for via taxes. By being in the clear, we could be proactive in keeping ourselves and loved ones safe, especially considering the dramatic rise in serious events in the past few years. Encrypting all talk groups can erode public trust by creating a perception of secrecy.
As per the 2024 Activity Report available on the Royal Newfoundland Constabularies website (
https://www.rnc.gov.nl.ca/files/2024-Activity-Report-Online.pdf), page 10, paragraph 4: "Recognizing that active police events can be distressing for the community, the RNC is working on ways to improve the dissemination of information. The RNC is exploring subscription-based options for push notifications to notify the public of ongoing police activities in an attempt to reach as many people as possible during an active event". The next paragraph reads: "The RNC is continually reviewing its public communication strategies to ensure it is being responsive to the communities it serves. The RNC is committed to providing residents with accurate and timely information across a variety of mediums." A good solution would be to make dispatch radio accessible to the general public, so we could know about active events in the RNC (and other agencies) service districts.
Understandably, not every talk group should be in the clear. We understand that talk groups reserved for tactical operations, or things that would be considered "Protected - B" or "C" do not need to be in the clear, However there is no reason for everything being encrypted. We would like to see things like Dispatch and other non tactical talk groups be changed from AES256 encryption, to in the clear status.
Things to keep in mind regarding encryption:
1: Encryption requires all radios on a talk group to have the same full time "strapped" key loaded.
2: Keys can be re-keyed over the air via "OTAR", however when doing this, if a subscriber unit does not hear the re-key, that radio may not receive it, and this could make a dangerous situation. If that subscriber unit is used with the wrong key, critical time could be wasted on scene trying to get that radio to work.
3: Multiple agencies responding to a singular event may not all have access to the same talk groups, and while there is a series of inter-operability talk groups, 8 out of 12 of these are encrypted. If an agency does not have the correct key, they would need to switch to a talk group in the clear. All this takes away form valuable on scene time, which could be avoided if the talk groups were in the clear from the start.
What we are asking of the government of Newfoundland and Labrador to do is a reasonable request that allows us who do monitor the public safety sector to continue to monitor it in a responsible manner while allowing the public safety sector to keep encryption enabled on talk groups that absolutely require it. Ultimately we wish to use these means as a method for keeping us, and those that we care about safe.
I doubt I will receive a reply, however this letter is gaining support here in VO by listeners, and a petition may soon follow. 73 de Aaron VO1IV
