PIPEDA – Excited Pixels

The recent report from Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, entitled “Investigation of the RCMP’s collection of open-source information under Project Wide Awake,” is an important read for those interested in the restrictions that apply to federal government agencies’ collection of this information.

The OPC found that the RCMP:

had sought to outsource its own legal accountabilities to a third-party vendor that aggregated information,
was unable to demonstrate that their vendor was lawfully collecting Canadian residents’ personal information,
operated in contravention to prior guarantees or agreements between the OPC and the RCMP,
was relying on a deficient privacy impact assessment, and
failed to adequately disclose to Canadian residents how information was being collected, with the effect of preventing them from understanding the activities that the RCMP was undertaking.

It is a breathtaking condemnation of the method by which the RCMP collected open source intelligence, and includes assertions that the agency is involved in activities that stand in contravention of PIPEDA and the Privacy Act, as well as its own internal processes and procedures. The findings in this investigation build from past investigations into how Clearview AI collected facial images to build biometric templates, guidance on publicly available information, and joint cross-national guidance concerning data scraping and the protection of privacy.

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.