[Bloquez l'empire!] Public Safety Canada quietly launches lawful access consultation

[Mary Foster]

 From: <www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2228/125/> Public Safety Canada
Quietly Launches Lawful Access Consultation

Public Safety Canada <http://securitepublique.gc.ca/index-en.asp>  and
Industry Canada have quietly launched a semi-public consultation on one
element of lawful access.  The new consultation, which concludes on
September 25th, asks for comments on the provision of customer name and
address information by telecommunications companies to law enforcement.  The
consultation has not been posted on the Internet and I was asked not to post
it online.

That said, this is an important issue and I believe that the government
should hear from all interested stakeholders, not a hand-picked, secret
group.  In the consultation, Public Safety claims that "law enforcement
agencies have been experiencing difficulties in consistently obtaining basic
CNA information from telecommunications service providers.  In the absence
of explicit legislation, a variety of practices exists among TSPs with
respect to the release of basic customer information, e.g. name, address,
telephone number, or their Internet equivalents."  After identifying what it
considers CNA data (including cell phone identifiers, email addresses, and
IP addresses), the departments propose a series of safeguards including
limits on who would have access to the information, limited uses of the
information, and internal audits on the use of these powers.

It is extremely disappointing to see that the departments continue to
believe that ISPs should be required to hand over potentially sensitive
personal information without a court order or other judicial oversight.
Moreover, the claim that law enforcement has faced "difficulties" in
obtaining CNA data remains completely unsubstantiated (to the extent that
some ISPs ask for a court order, this reflects an appropriate balance that
Parliament established when it enacted PIPEDA).

The lawful access issue has often raised the spectre of "big brother" fears.
Establishing a non-public public consultation that omits a range of
pro-privacy policy alternatives and excludes many interested stakeholders
leaves the distinct impression of a process that has already been determined
and one that makes the Orwellian concerns all the more real.
Tags:cna data <http://www.michaelgeist.ca/tags/cna+data> , lawful access
<http://www.michaelgeist.ca/tags/lawful+access> , privacy
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