Third-party internet provider Teksavvy and Rogers, one of the largest ISPs in Canada, have published the first Canadian telecommunications transparency reports.
Both Teksavvy and Rogers have released documents detailing the subscriber information both companies have released to police and spy agencies over the last few years. Teksavvy disclosed their transparency report first and then Rogers followed soon after.
Canada’s ISPs Are Finally Revealing How Often the Government Requests User Data:
Two Canadian telecommunications companies—Rogers Communications and TekSavvy Solutions—are the country’s first to disclose the number of requests they receive from government agencies each year, and also detail what customer data they will and will not hand over upon request.
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TekSavvy’s disclosure data was published in a letter to the Munk School of Global Affairs’s Citizen Lab released late Wednesday evening, in response to questions submitted by Citizen Lab researcher Christopher Parsons and other privacy academics in late January. TekSavvy has promised that regular transparency reports are still to come.
“I’m hopeful that this will provide the clear rationale for other companies to come forward with equivalent responses,” Parsons said in an interview. “This is especially the case for companies such as TELUS, which stated in their responses they were investigating how much information they could place on the public record.”
At the time of publication, TELUS had yet to respond to a request from Motherboard for comment.
When asked if Bell would release a similar transparency report, a spokesperson would only say that the company “releases information to law enforcement agencies only when required by law and always in compliance with federal privacy and CRTC regulations.”
TekSavvy, Rogers break silence over government requests for data:
Two telecommunications companies have released details regarding the number of demands for customer data they receive from police and government authorities, signalling a shift in how communications providers plan to deal with subscribers’ privacy concerns.
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TekSavvy’s report goes so far as to invoke the transparency principles of Edward Snowden, the U.S. security contractor – now charged with espionage – who one year ago started leaking top secret documents about Washington’s access to American citizens’ phone records.
“The Edward Snowden leaks based in the U.S. … have helped underline a key commitment that is required to achieve this mission, which is strong data privacy and transparency,” Bram Abramson, the company’s chief legal and regulatory officer wrote, adding, “TekSavvy has taken steps to strengthen our internal team dedicated to legal and regulatory matters.”
Mr. Abramson’s letter was written in response to requests from a group of privacy-oriented academics led by Christopher Parsons, a research fellow with Citizen Lab, which is part of the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs. “[TekSavvy’s report] is the first time any telecommunications carrier in Canada has, in a public way, identified the conditions and the laws under which it may be required to preserve or capture or disclose information,” Mr. Parsons said in an interview.
34 International Experts Weigh in on Mass Surveillance on Snowden Anniversary:
Today, a group of over 400 organizations and experts, along with 350,000 individuals, continue to rally in support of the 13 International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance (the Necessary and Proportionate Principles) a year to the day after Edward Snowden first revealed how governments are monitoring individuals on a massive scale. The international experts who supported the Necessary and Proportionate Principles has issued a press release containing quotes from professions weighing in on the need to end the mass surveillance.
Christopher Parsons, Postdoctoral Fellow, Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto (Canada):“The past year has revealed that dragnet state surveillance has enveloped the world despite our nations’ privacy and data protection laws, laws that have demonstrably been diminished, undermined, and evaded by privacy-hostile governments over the course of the past decade. It is critical that we take the initiative and work to better endow our privacy commissioners and data protection regulators with the powers they need to investigate and terminate programs that inappropriately or unlawfully invade and undermine our individual and collective rights to privacy.”
The Pressure’s On Harper to End Online Spying — Let’s Keep it Up:
And let’s not forget that criticism of the online spying bill comes from across the political spectrum. We’ve seen leading figures from the NDP, the Liberals, and the Green Partyall speak out against this reckless online spying plan. None of this would have happened without you and tens of thousands of other Canadians taking action to pressure decision-makers. And our own Steve Anderson is planning to take your voices directly to leading MPs. Steve is currently scheduled to testify on June 3 before key MPs on the Parliamentary committee examining Bill C-13 – we’ll let you know early next week how you can help shape Steve’s testimony.
That’s not all. In the past few days alone we’ve seen two major efforts from members of Canada’s largest-everPrivacy Coalitionto curtail the government’s out of control spying. First, coalition members at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association joined with leading expert Dr. Chris Parsons to announce alandmark constitutional challengeto the parts of Canada’s privacy legislation that enable the government to obtain our private information without a warrant.
Second, dozens of top privacy experts, supported by pro-privacy groups including OpenMedia.ca, launched the Ottawa Statement on Mass Surveillance – a set of high-level proposals to rein in out-of-control government spying for once and for all. (Learn more and sign on to the Statement here)
A good summary piece of the actions taking place in opposition to contemporary Canadian government surveillance practices. There’ll be another piece coming out in a while that’s even more comprehensive: it’s actually pretty amazing how much is going on in Canada post-Snowden once you list it all!
Federal privacy law faces constitutional challenge:
In 2011, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association said its members received a total of 1.2 million requests in one year, and disclosed information about 780,000 customers.
The civil liberties group acknowledges that law enforcement may need access to some personal information in specific circumstances, but says the current law is “too broad.”
Cara Zwibel, a lawyer with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said the sheer scale of the disclosures concerns her group and makes it question the legitimacy of the requests.
“We know that there are implications for people when this kind of information gets shared, there’s also a lack of transparency,” she told CBC News in an interview.
Zwibel noted that people have trouble finding out from their telecom provider if government agencies have asked about them, and the government isn’t clear about what it does with the information, including sharing with foreign governments. Meanwhile, some people find themselves on no-fly lists without knowing how or why.
Civil liberties group seeks to have parts of online surveillance law struck down:
A national civil liberties group is challenging the constitutionality of a federal privacy law that allows Internet providers and other firms to disclose personal information to the government without a warrant.
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The association is joined in the court action by researcher Christopher Parsons, who has helped lead an effort to ask Canadian telecommunication companies when and how they hand customer information to police and security agencies.
The association says the consequences of allowing government to have and share personal information without the person’s knowledge or consent can be very serious and violate fundamental constitutional rights.
Privacy watchdog calls for reforms but ministers stay silent:
The federal privacy watchdog’s concerns appear to be falling on deaf ears in the government, with three cabinet ministers yet to respond to her calls for reform.
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While Clement has agreed to work with the commissioner, it’s not clear if her other recommendations will be entertained by the government. Chris Parsons, a privacy scholar with the Munk School of Global Affairs in Toronto, said the government has little incentive to change the current system or increase oversight.
“As revelations come out, that could be hurtful to government,” Parsons said. “There’s an understandable political value in not (enhancing) these audit powers. You can just imagine the first audit is performed and it reveals very high amounts of personal information being collected from various sources … . It could be politically unhelpful.”
My money is on the government quietly hoping the public and media just forget about this issues through the summer, given that they’ll be breaking from Parliament soon for BBQ season.
Is social media info reliable?:
Christopher Parsons of Citizen Lab says the government’s use of social media to obtain information is filled with pitfalls.
I much preferred this interview over the one with CBC; in particular, the final discussion is helpful: Canadians want a responsible and transparent government, not one that is opaque and operates counter to Canadian values.
Government snooping on social media may breach Privacy Act:
Those are questions the government hasn’t answered, said Christopher Parsons, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, which focuses on human rights, IT and global security research.
“This is information that’s been collected without Canadians knowing, and as the privacy commissioner noted, without clear reason,” said Parsons, an expert on state surveillance tools.
“This government is saying they should be able to access public information just like anybody else, but that confuses how Canadian law works.”
Parsons said, once information is made public, Canadians maintain a “privacy interest” in the material.
Without a doubt, this is the most comprehensive piece to date on the federal government snooping on Canadians’ social media accounts.
Excited Pixels