Tag: Privacy

Categories
Links Quotations

2014.2.13

Dr. Christopher Parsons, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affair, University of Toronto, Canada: “Our democratic governments have been caught massively spying on innocent individuals around the world. In the process, citizens’ willingness to exercise rights of speech, association, and collective action have been chilled. By reforming governments’ behaviours in a concerted, global, fashion we can push back against this surveillance, surveillance that currently threatens to suffocate our democracies.”

Katitza Rodriguez, “International Community Unites to Protest Big Brother”
Categories
Links Quotations

U of T steps into Internet privacy conversation

In the post-Snowden era of Internet privacy, Parsons and others are continuing the often difficult and unpopular work of pulling back the veil of government surveillance. Students across the country, continent, and indeed, the world, are aware of the new status quo, but may not have considered the full privacy implications of increased access to information online. It is, unfortunately, easy to ignore the droning of television anchors or the frequently updated headlines of news sources as they appear on Facebook and Twitter, especially when the medium lends itself to distraction. The irony, of course, is that as these stories appear, they are swiftly buried under an infinite stream of online information.

From the editorial board at The Varsity, U of T’s student newspaper.

Categories
Links

Alleged Wi-Fi tracking is out of Canadians’ control: privacy experts

New allegations that CSEC tracked the gadgets of travellers using Wi-Fi have some questioning their privacy – but experts say there’s little Canadians can do about it.

Last week I was interviewed by Global News about the revelations CSEC was collecting metadata emitted from wireless stations in Canada. This is the result.

Source: Alleged Wi-Fi tracking is out of Canadians’ control: privacy experts

Categories
Links

With CSEC monitoring people in airports, how much spying is done on Canadians?

We offer up volumes of private information about ourselves online and just assume we’re untouchable. But the latest revelations about

I had a chance to speak with The Current today about privacy, spying, and CSEC. It was really great to hear from the Interim Privacy Commissioner of Canada and Jacquelyn Burkell on these topics as well.

Source: With CSEC monitoring people in airports, how much spying is done on Canadians?

Categories
Links

Citizen Lab calls for government surveillance oversight

U of T post-doctoral fellow writes letter asking for detailed answers on consumer data sharing

Another article, this time in the UoT student newspaper, about the letters we sent to Canadian ISPs.

Source: Citizen Lab calls for government surveillance oversight

Categories
Aside

New Mug

Spoils of my on-air interview this morning!

Categories
Links

Experts weigh in on the state of Canada’s spying rules

On Tuesday, Interim Privacy Commissioner Chantal Bernier called for more surveillance disclosure and a rewrite of Canada™’s privacy laws

Christopher Parsons, a postdoctoral fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs’ Citizen Lab, who studies state access to telecommunications data.Some of the recommendations in the report are similar to those made before – including a call for broader powers and more robust laws to allow watchdogs to do their job.

“Many of these suggestions the privacy commissioner has put forward are indicative of that office not being able to play its role. It doesn’t have the required powers to understand what’s going on in order to a) make things right or b) blow the whistle,” he said, later adding: “Should Canadians be concerned? Yeah. What the Commissioner’s office is saying is we do a good job, we do the best we can within our mandate, but our mandate is to narrow.”

Hopefully the Commissioner’s recommendations are implemented by the federal government given how pressing national security and signals intelligence issues have become.

Source: Experts weigh in on the state of Canada’s spying rules

Categories
Links

Privacy: You need to know who is listening

As it happens, last week, a group of academics and civil-liberties organizations, led by Christopher Parsons, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, sent out a long questionnaire to 16 Canadian telecommunications carriers. For example, it asks the carriers how the types of the authorities’ requests break down, as among matters of child exploitation, terrorism, national security and foreign intelligence.

Nice to have been mentioned in the Globe’s Editorial!

Source: Privacy: You need to know who is listening

Categories
Links

Citizen Lab calls on Canada’s telcos to publish transparency report

As American telcoms operators take up the practice of publishing transparency reports showing how many law-enforcement requests they receive, Canadian activists are wondering why Canada’s telcoms sector hasn’t followed suit.

Source: Citizen Lab calls on Canada’s telcos to publish transparency report

Categories
Links

Reveal extent of government data surveillance, campaign asks telecom companies

More coverage of our letters to Canadian telecommunications service providers concerning how, when, under what conditions, and how often they disclose information to government agencies.

Source: Reveal extent of government data surveillance, campaign asks telecom companies