Law enforcement agencies already have the means to track the online activities of suspicious Internet Protocol addresses - in fact, many talented hackers can do the same thing -- but what authorities lack is a fast and legal method of attaching a name to those IP numbers.

That could change, if Public Safety Canada and Industry Canada move forward on plans for new legislation that would require telecommunications providers to give up private information about their clients, on demand.

• Read News Story:  Feds push for greater access to private info

Rather than having to go to a judge for a search warrant, police and other authorities could instead issue what's called in Europe a "Production Order" -- a request for information that would help speed up investigations.

Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, says there is no shortage of technology to track people's use of the Internet.

He tells CTV.ca that an IP address -- in theory one is assigned to every computer connected to the Internet -- leaves a "footprint" on various websites visited by the user.

Authorities can't track those IP footprints in real time, but they can create a map of various sites the user has visited over a period of time.

"They may have the IP address along with certain activities. What they don't have is an identifier to say who this person is," Geist tells CTV.ca.

But he adds: "If you've got the subscriber name, suddenly you're linking it to all kinds of Internet activity, or if you have a name, and now you have their IP address, you can start tracing their activities as they roam around the Internet."

When a user is connected to the Internet, they are inevitably leaving digital tracks, says CTV's technology expert Kris Abel. But whether authorities are able to turn those clues into evidence is another story.

When a user visits a website, such as CTV.ca, their computer sends a request to the site to download a copy of what the site is displaying. That data is then downloaded to the user's computer and displayed on their monitor.

But in order to provide the data, the website requires an IP address so it knows where to send the data, much like an area code, Abel says.

Those I.P. addresses are allocated to a specific country, then to Internet providers within that country.

"With a little bit of detective work you can glean the country they're coming from, whether they're on broadband or dialup, and other clues as to the location of the user," Abel says.

Some software programs used by websites to track their visitors even provide the approximate latitude and longitude of the user.

Wikipedia users have recently been turning up interesting details about the users who make edits on the popular encyclopedia site, using Wikiscanner, a program that reveals the IP address of the user who made the edit.

The technology has turned up stunning details about the origin of edits made to some pages. In one example, Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan's staff admitted to deleting unflattering but true items from Sullivan's page.

But programs like Wikiscanner can only narrow the field down as far as the Internet provider, except in certain cases, such as when a major company has its own set of IP addresses which are often electronically labelled as belonging to the company.

But in order to connect an IP address to a specific person, police need the cooperation of the providers, who often prefer to protect their clients and refuse to reveal that information unless forced to.

That's where the new legislation, if approved, will come in handy for police. But that doesn't guarantee results, Abel says.