Canada’s secret ‘lawful access’ study
p2pnet news | Politics:- A “semi-public consultation on one element of lawful access” is currently being studied by Public Safety Canada and Industry Canada, says Canadian law professor Michael Geist.
For ’semi-public’ read ’secret’.
The issue is of obvious and huge national importance to Canadians across the board, but only a “hand-picked, secret group” are in the loop, says Geist.
The consultation, “asks for comments on the provision of customer name and address information by telecommunications companies to law enforcement,” he blogs, emphasising it isn’t available online and that he was asked not to post it.
It ends on September 25 and, “I believe that the government should hear from all interested stakeholders, not a hand-picked, secret group,” he states, going on:
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.
Stay tuned.
Also See:
blogs – Public Safety Canada Quietly Launches Lawful Access Consultation, September 11, 2007
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