CIPPIC joined a group of privacy experts comprised of academics and public interest organizations today in calling on the government to rethink a set of legislative proposals (innocuously dubbed 'lawful access') that threaten to seriously undermine online privacy. In doing so, the group of privacy experts have added their voices to the 46,000+ Canadians who have already signed an online petition, Charlie Angus and Jasbir Sandhu (NDP Privacy Spokesman and Public Safety Ciritic, respectively), the BC Civil Liberties Association, as well as to Canada's federal and provincial privacy Commissioners, collectively, all of whom have already stated grave concerns with respect to the proposed erosion of online privacy.
This Wednesday, July 27th, the Forum to Stop Online Spying will be held at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. The forum will examine issues arising from proposed cyber surveillance legislation that threatens to undermine online privacy in serious ways. The forum will be hosted by the SFU School of Communication, with support from OpenMedia.ca, the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, and the BC Civil Liberties Association.
Charlie Angus and Jasbit Sandhu, the NDP Ethics, Privacy and Digital Issues Spokesman and Public Safety Critic, respectively, in a letter to Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews, are calling for careful scrutiny of a legislative proposal that threatens to create a "digital panopticon" where online citizen actions can be tracked at rates unprecedented in Canada.
The letter highlights a number of concerns, foremost of which are the warrantless disclosure provisions in the proposed legislation, which will force telecommunications service providers to identify anonymous customers upon request. Anonymity is key to any meaningful privacy protection online, and such identities will be the doorway to a host of personal information ranging from online political speech on blogs to exposing the social connections of anonymous accounts on services such as Twitter, to geolocation data. Yet under these lawful access bills, state agents will be given the power to seize such information, even where there is no reason to suspect it will be useful to an investigation.
OpenMedia.ca has launched a petition to stop the Government's online spying mandate. The petition, which is directed 'lawful access' legislation the federal government has committed to pass as part of an omnibus bill within 100 days of Parliament's sitting, expresses concern with the broad, warrantless powers that the government seeks to put in place without any real oversight. These powers are troubling in that they will allow state agents to identify anonymous online users in situations where there is not even any reason to suspect the information will be useful to an investigation. Indicative of this concern, the Privacy Commissioners of Canada had collectively denounced the lawful access bills, as drafted, in a historic joint letter to the government in May.
In an open letter to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, CIPPIC and a number of civil society organizations voice serious concerns with respect to Bill C-29, currently before the House and scheduled for second reading early next week. The Bill, ironically dubbed the 'Safeguarding Canadians' Personal Information Act', proposes a number of amendments to Canada's federal privacy protection statute, PIPEDA. Far from improving privacy, the Bill threatens to erode civil liberties in serious ways. Even where it attempts to improve privacy, it falls short by failing to provide any incentive for compliance.
On June 18, 2009, the Canadian Government tabled two parallel bills with the stated purpose of providing law enforcement bodies with the tools to combat crime in the digital era:
In September 2007, after a closed consultation became public, Public Safety Canada issued a Consultation Paper on the issue of giving police expanded powers to obtain certain subscriber identifying data (e.g., name, postal/email/IP address, tel number, cell phone identifier) without a warrant or any reasonable grounds to suspect criminal activity. Strangely, the consultation followed assertions by the Minister of Public Safety, that "We are not, in any way, shape or form, wanting extra powers to police to pursue items without a warrant."
On November 15, 2005, the federal government introduced Bill C-74, the Modernization of Investigative Techniques Act (MITA), "an act to compel all telephone and Internet companies to create and maintain infrastructures that are intercept capable and to provide access to basic subscriber contact information such as a name, address or telephone number." Note that this bill does not introduce new Production Orders, Preservation Orders, or other Criminal Code amendments that are described below as part of the broader package of "Lawful Access" proposals on which the government has been consulting.
The proposals described below were set out by the government in a series of Powerpoint presentations made to a select group of stakeholders in March 2005. These presentations were not made public until Jason Young obtained them by way of an Access to Information request, in October 2005.
New information and communication technologies such as the Internet, email, cellphones, and encryption offer individuals new ways to communicate, organize, and engage in criminal behaviours, creating challenges for law enforcement agencies in their efforts to investigate and prosecute criminal activity. On the other hand, these same technologies provide authorities with access to potentially vast amounts of personal information on individuals.
