My recent interview with Jesse Brown about the disclosure of user data by telecommunications companies to the governments of Canada, why this is occurring, and how Canadians can learn if their telecom companies are sharing personal information with government agencies.
Author: Christopher Parsons
Policy wonk. Torontonian. Photographer. Not necessarily in that order.
We can’t let phone companies determine our privacy rights:
Acting Privacy Commissioner Chantal Bernier is correct that we need more transparency in relation to the extent to which our telecoms co-operate with the state. But real accountability requires more than this. It requires legal standards that offer protection. It requires limits on how much of our privacy rights can be taken away by the one-sided, non-negotiated actions of companies we rely on for essential services.
The warrantless access question is currently before the Supreme Court of Canada in a case called R v Spencer. Let’s hope that they pause at least every 27 seconds and think about what’s at stake.
Lisa Austin and Andrea Slane on the need to inhibit of authorities’ warrantless access to subscriber data in Canada.
Telco-abetted spying is perverse on many levels:
The financial side of this whole issue aside, the Citizen Lab believes it’s time for people themselves to seek answers from the telecom companies, who have so far been obfuscating with experts, government bodies and the press on exactly what sorts of information they’re sharing. Canadians have the right to demand such information under Principle 4.9 of Schedule 1 and section 8 of federal privacy legislation, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, Parsons says. To that end, he has created a template letter and supplied the addresses of various companies’ privacy officers that they can be sent to.
Refusing to reveal to a customer what information is being shared about them would be a violation of federal privacy law, Parsons says. The answers to all of this will come out one way or another.
If you’ve been wondering what information your telecommunications company has about you, and whether it’s disclosed to other parties, then you can fill out the Citizen Lab’s template letter in under 5 minutes and then send it off to the relevant corporate privacy officers.
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Rob Deibert on Privacy Concerns
Ron Deibert, Director of the Citizen Lab, speaks with Amanda Lang about why government access to our digital data is a threat to liberal democracy.
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Surveillance Debate Tickets
Stage tickets for tomorrow’s surveillance debate!
One Canadian company told officials it has installed “what is essentially a mirror” on its network, so that it can send some raw data traffic directly to “federal authorities.”
“Mirroring is when you take a one-to-one copy of a traffic stream,” explained Chris Parsons, an expert state surveillance tools at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. He said that such technology can be used as a tool of mass surveillance, but that in this case it appears to have been used selectively, so as to route lawfully requested information to authorities.
“The more concerning use, which I don’t believe we saw in those documents, would be if they were digging through my [Internet] packets,” he said.
Source: Feds tap telecoms for customer data at ‘staggering’ rate
This post argues that Canadians are not powerless. They can use existing laws to try and learn whether their communications companies are disclosing their personal information to state agencies. I begin by explaining why Canadians have a legal right to compel companies to disclose the information that they generate and collect about Canadians. I then provide a template letter that Canadians can fill in and issue to the telecommunications companies providing them with service, as well as some of the contact information for major Canadian telecommunications companies. Finally, I’ll provide a few tips on what to do if companies refuse to respond to your requests and conclude by explaining why it’s so important that Canadians send these demands to companies providing them with phone, wireless, and internet service.
It’s not hard to file a request to a telecommunications company and, now, I’ve made it as simple as filling out and mailing a form letter.
Source: Responding the the Crisis in Canadian Telecommunications
Canada’s privacy commissioner says she has no idea how often telecom companies share consumers’ personal information, despite repeated requests for such information from Canada’s telecom giants. After an appearance before the Senate committee on transportation and communications Tuesday, Interim Privacy Commissioner Chantal Bernier said cell phone and internet companies are refusing to release details on the practice.
It is beyond disappointing that Canada’s telecoms have decided to treat Canadians’ personal information without even basic regards for Canadian privacy law (which includes being transparent, accountable, and open about how personal information is collected, retained, managed, and disclosed). What’s worse is that most Canadians seem bemused when officers of parliament, academics, reporters, and similarly interested groups try to learn this information, with many Canadians seemingly believing that the telecoms are (effectively) beyond the law and that it’s a fool’s errand to try and bring them into compliance.
Source: Telecoms’ tight lips on customer data use leaves privacy watchdog in the dark
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2014.5.29
It is telling that among the prime minister’s most trenchant critics these days is Tom Flanagan, once one of his closest advisors, an academic-cum-political strategist who is at once both deeply conservative and shrewdly pragmatic. This government is neither. It is reckless, not in the style of governments that overread their mandate, but in an aimless, scattershot way. It is partisan, but for no purpose other than stubbornness and tribalism. It will take every fight to the limit, pick fights if none present themselves, with no thought to the consequences of either victory or defeat but seemingly out of sheer bloodlust. Like the proverbial dog chasing the car, it has no idea what it will do when it catches it.
Andrew Coyne, “The Harper Government Playbook: Frontal Assault or Spectacular About Face”
Excited Pixels 