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Monday May 27, 2013 |
Last week, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada released her vision of privacy reform,
including the need for security breach disclosure legislation,
order-making power, and greater transparency of warrantless disclosure.
On the same day as Commissioner Stoddart released her position paper,
the government was embarrassing itself in the House of Commons by
formally opposing security breach disclosure legislation on the weakest
of grounds. The opposition to meaningful privacy reform is particularly
discouraging given the thousands of breaches
that have occurred in recent years from within the government itself
and its claims to be concerned with the privacy of Canadians.
The government introduced legislation featuring security breach disclosure requirements in Bill C-12 in September 2011 (itself a reintroduction of the former C-29
that was first introduced in 2010). Since first reading, the bill has
not moved. It would take very little for the government to complete
second reading and send the bill for study to committee, yet more than a
year and a half later, the bill languishes, certain to die this summer
when the government hits the parliamentary reset button. Frustrated by
the inexplicable delays, NDP MP Charmaine Borg introduced a private
member's bill in February (C-475) that includes a mandatory security breach requirement roughly similar to the government's own bill.
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Tuesday April 30, 2013 |
As Canadians focused last week on the aftermath of the Boston Marathon
bombing and the RCMP arrests of two men accused of plotting to attack
Via Rail, the largest sustained series of privacy breaches in Canadian
history was uncovered but attracted only limited attention. Canadians
have faced high profile data breaches in the past - Winners/HomeSense
and the CIBC were both at the centre of serious breaches several years
ago - but last week, the federal government revealed that it may
represent the biggest risk to the privacy of millions of Canadians as
some government departments have suffered breaches virtually every 48
hours.
The revelations came as a result of questions from NDP MP Charlie Angus,
who sought information on data, information or privacy breaches in all
government departments from 2002 to 2012. The resulting documentation
is stunning in its breadth.
My weekly technology column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that virtually every major government department has sustained breaches, with
the majority occurring over the past five years (many did not retain
records dating back to 2002). In numerous instances, the Privacy
Commissioner of Canada was not advised of the breach.
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Monday April 29, 2013 |
Appeared in the Toronto Star on April 27, 2013 as Your Information is Not Secure in Ottawa
As Canadians focused last week on the aftermath of the Boston Marathon
bombing and the RCMP arrests of two men accused of plotting to attack
Via Rail, the largest sustained series of privacy breaches in Canadian
history was uncovered but attracted only limited attention. Canadians
have faced high profile data breaches in the past - Winners/HomeSense
and the CIBC were both at the centre of serious breaches several years
ago - but last week, the federal government revealed that it may
represent the biggest risk to the privacy of millions of Canadians as
some government departments have suffered breaches virtually every 48
hours.
The revelations came as a result of questions from NDP MP Charlie Angus,
who sought information on data, information or privacy breaches in all
government departments from 2002 to 2012. The resulting documentation
is stunning in its breadth.
Virtually every major government department has sustained breaches, with
the majority occurring over the past five years (many did not retain
records dating back to 2002). In numerous instances, the Privacy
Commissioner of Canada was not advised of the breach.
Some of the most vulnerable departments are those that host the most
sensitive information. For example, Citizenship and Immigration Canada
suffered 161 breaches in 2012 - more than three per week - affecting
hundreds of people. The department only disclosed the breaches to the
Privacy Commissioner of Canada on five occasions.
Human Resources and Skills Development Canada famously suffered a
massive breach last year - 588,384 individuals were affected - but less
well known is that the department has had thousands of other breaches
over the past few years. In 2007, a breach affected 28,651 people, yet
the Privacy Commissioner of Canada was not informed and the department
is unsure of whether the breach resulted in criminal activity.
Virtually no department has been immune to security breaches with nearly
100,000 individuals affected by breaches at Agriculture and Agri-Food
Canada since 2008, almost 5,000 individuals hit at Fisheries Canada with
no reporting to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, and just under 200
breaches at the RCMP affecting an unknown number of people.
If a similar situation occurred involving a major Canadian bank,
retailer, or telecom company, there would be an immediate outcry for
tougher rules on mandatory disclosure of security breaches. Yet the
federal government plays by different rules, with no liability and no
legal requirements to disclose the breaches.
Successive federal privacy commissioners have urged the government to
reform the badly outdated Privacy Act to at least hold government to the
same privacy standard that it expects from the private sector. But
those calls for reform have been repeatedly ignored.
Most recently, Privacy Commissioner of Canada Jennifer Stoddart
identified twelve seemingly uncontroversial reforms, including
strengthening annual reporting requirements by government departments,
introducing a provision for proper security safeguards for the
protection of personal information, and creating legislated security
breach notification requirements. None of the recommendations have been
implemented.
In fact, Canadian privacy failures dot the legislative landscape. Bill
C-12, the Canadian private sector privacy bill intended to implement
reforms that date back to hearings conducted in 2006 lies dormant in the
House of Commons. A review of the private sector privacy law that was
required by law in 2011 has seemingly been forgotten. Anti-spam
legislation passed in 2010 and touted as a key part of the government's
cybercrime strategy is stuck as Industry Minister Christian Paradis
dithers on the applicable regulations.
No institution has greater access to the personal information of
Canadians than the federal government. The public entrusts it to keep
their information secure and to take all appropriate action should a
security breach occur. The latest revelations indicate that the failure
to live up to that trust is spread across virtually all government
departments and to the political leaders that have failed to introduce
much-needed legislative privacy safeguards.
Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and
E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can
reached at mgeist@uottawa.ca or online at www.michaelgeist.ca.
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Tuesday April 23, 2013 |
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The federal government has responded
to a question from MP Charlie Angus on privacy and security breaches by
revealing that there have been thousands of breaches over the past
decade. The stunning response acknowledges over 3,000 breaches that have
affected over a million Canadians. Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareTuesday April 23, 2013 |
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