Much of the discussion around the new lawful access bill (Bill C-22) has focused on provisions that improved upon Bill C-2, notably the decision to scrap the warrantless information demand power by requiring judicial oversight for access to subscriber information. Yet despite that improvement, there remain serious privacy concerns with the government’s latest iteration of lawful access. Buried in the second half of Bill C-22 is a provision granting the government the power to require “core providers” to retain categories of metadata, including transmission data, for up to one year. This is mandatory metadata retention that would require telecom and electronic service providers to store information about the communications of all their users, regardless of whether those users are suspected of anything. It is one of the most privacy invasive tools a government can deploy and the international experience suggests that there are major privacy risks.
Latest Posts
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 261: Ian Goldberg on the Privacy Risks of Age Assurance Technologies
Age verification, estimation or inference is seemingly all the rage right now. Vendors are promoting it as the solution to thorny challenges to limit access to certain sites and services and politicians are eager to legislate in that direction, including in Canada with Bill S-209.
Hundreds of scientists and technology experts from around the world have taken note of the trend and come together to issue a public letter warning about the privacy, safety and discrimination risks associated with these technologies. Ian Goldberg, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Privacy Enhancing Technologies at the University of Waterloo, was one of the signatories. Ian has long been engaged at the intersection between technology and privacy and joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the technology, how privacy enhancing technologies could address some of the concerns, and the risks with current legislative approaches.
Government Enacts Political Party Anti-Privacy Rules With Bill C-4 Royal Assent Sprint
I’ve written extensively about Bill C-4 and the government’s effort to bury political party privacy rules that largely eliminate privacy obligations for federal political parties and apply the new rules retroactively to May 2000. This past week’s Law Bytes podcast featured Senate hearings on the bill, which ultimately resulted in an amendment to require the government to establish actual privacy obligations within three years. The government yesterday rejected the amendment and the bill received royal assent in a lightning-fast process.
A Tale of Two Bills: Lawful Access Returns With Changes to Warrantless Access But Dangerous Backdoor Surveillance Risks Remain
The decades-long battle over lawful access entered a new phase yesterday with the introduction of Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act. This bill follows the attempt last spring to bury lawful access provisions in Bill C-2, a border measures bill that was the new government’s first piece of substantive legislation. The lawful access elements of the bill faced an immediate backlash given the inclusion of unprecedented rules permitting widespread warrantless access to personal information. Those rules were on very shaky constitutional ground and the government ultimately decided to hit the reset button on lawful access by proceeding with the border measures in a different bill.
Lawful access never dies, however. Bill C-22 cover the two main aspects of lawful access: law enforcement access to personal information held by communication service providers such as ISPs and wireless providers and the development of surveillance and monitoring capabilities within Canadian networks. In fact, the bill is separated into two with the first half dealing with “timely access to data and information” and the second establishing the Supporting Authorized Access to Information Act (SAAIA).
Words Are Not Enough: Countering Relentless Antisemitic Violence in Canada With Action
On a hot August day nearly 32 years ago, I was married at the Shaarei Shomayim synagogue in Toronto. My Globe and Mail op-ed notes that I leafed through my wedding album this weekend as I grappled with the news that gunfire targeted the synagogue on Friday night, the third such attack on a synagogue in Toronto in a matter of days. The photos of my grandparents – Holocaust survivors who rebuilt their lives in Canada – looked back at me as if to warn that the risks are real.
The gun violence sparked the usual political tweets denouncing the shooting, pledging support, and unconvincingly stating that antisemitism has no place in Canada. Yet the predominant emotion that would have once greeted this news – shock – is no more. Over the past two-and-a-half years, Canadian Jewish communities from coast to coast have faced relentless antisemitic incidents: schools hit with gunfire, synagogues firebombed, community centres and old-age homes vandalized, hospitals protested, summer camps threatened, Jewish students and campus groups vilified, and Jewish-owned businesses boycotted.
Recent Posts
The Lawful Access Privacy Risks: Unpacking Bill C-22’s Expansive Metadata Retention Requirements 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 261: Ian Goldberg on the Privacy Risks of Age Assurance Technologies 
Government Enacts Political Party Anti-Privacy Rules With Bill C-4 Royal Assent Sprint 
A Tale of Two Bills: Lawful Access Returns With Changes to Warrantless Access But Dangerous Backdoor Surveillance Risks Remain 
Words Are Not Enough: Countering Relentless Antisemitic Violence in Canada With Action
