Public Safety Minister Vic Toews is expected to introduce lawful access legislation tomorrow in the House of Commons. An Act to enact the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act and to amend the Criminal Code and others Acts, likely to be Bill C-30, will mark the return of lawful access in a single legislative package. While it is certainly possible for a surprise, the bill is expected to largely mirror the last lawful access bills (C-50, 51, and 52) that died on the order paper with the election last spring.
This long post tries to address many of the most common questions and misconceptions about lawful access in Canada. The questions and answers are:
- What is lawful access?
- What is Bill C-30 likely to contain?
- Isn’t ISP customer name and address information similar to phone book data that is readily available to the public without privacy concerns? (first prong)
- Isn’t the mandatory disclosure of ISP customer information necessary for police investigations? (first prong)
- Didn’t former Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day pledge not to introduce mandatory disclosure of ISP customer information without court oversight? (first prong)
- Who pays for the surveillance infrastructure required by lawful access? (second prong)
- Does lawful access create a new regulatory framework for the Internet? (second prong)
- Does lawful access create new police powers? (third prong)
- Does opposing lawful access mean questioning the integrity of law enforcement?
- Don’t other countries have the same lawful access rules as those found in Canada?
- What do Canada’s privacy commissioners think about lawful access?
- Are these lawful access proposal constitutional?
- Does the government seem somewhat inconsistent on its crime and privacy policies?
- Where can I learn more about lawful access and what can I do?
Update: Bill C-30 was introduced on February 14, 2012. One important change from the last bill to the current bill is that the list of data points subject to mandatory disclosure without court oversight has shrunk from 11 to six. The IMEI numbers, discussed further below, are no longer on the list.
