Bill C-22, the lawful access bill, was a focal point of debate in the Senate last week. While companies continue to warn they may exit Canada if the bill passes in its current form, the debate’s biggest revelation was that it may take years for the government to pass the regulations needed to fully implement the law. The delay is notable for several reasons, including the government’s insistence in the spring that passing the bill was urgent (to the point that it shut down committee clause-by-clause review) and the regulatory uncertainty that it creates. Indeed, the Senate is effectively being asked to approve a surveillance and data retention framework without knowing who will be covered, what they will be required to build, what data about Canadians will be retained, or what any of it will cost. If this sounds familiar, it is because it has seemingly become the government’s go-to approach on many of its digital bills, from privacy to social media regulation, where key decisions are left to regulations and regulatory processes that take years to complete.
Post Tagged with: "metadata retention"
Shaky Ground Gets Shakier: What the U.S. Supreme Court’s Location Data Decision Means for Bill C-22
When the government rushed Bill C-22 through the House of Commons last month, it defended the lawful access mandatory metadata retention requirement as consistent with similar rules established by Canada’s Five Eyes allies. Yet the U.S. has never imposed a comparable obligation to retain every subscriber’s transmission data, and this week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision that further solidifies the view that Bill C-22 is disproportionate and inconsistent with widely held understandings of privacy.
Government Moves to Shut Down Lawful Access Hearing In Order To Fast Track Passing the Bill This Week
The government is planning to shut down hearings into Bill C-22, the lawful access bill, with no further debate or discussion on potential amendments to the bill. It has just placed a motion on the Order Paper that would limit today’s committee meeting to only 30 minutes for standard clause-by-clause review. After that, it plans to cancel all further debate or discussion on any other amendments. The committee will instead be required to vote on all remaining amendments with no further debate, discussions or questions to officials. In fact, the substance of the amendments will remain secret and will not even be disclosed to the public. The government’s intent is clearly to complete clause-by-clause review tonight to ensure that the bill passes through the House of Commons by the end of the week
Yesterday, the government introduced privacy reforms that shuts down the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s role in private sector privacy regulation. Today, it is shutting down hearings into one of the biggest privacy threats in years. Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree had committed to amendments during the lawful access hearings, but this move means that only secret government amendments that will not be made public during the hearing will pass. Opposition parties have submitted many amendments based on testimony from the Privacy Commissioner, bar associations, security companies, and privacy experts. These include potential changes to the rules on mandatory metadata retention, risks to security and encryption, and privacy safeguards. All of these amendments will not even be made public, much less open to debate and discussion. Weeks of hearings and public concern tossed aside by the government in a rush to shut down debate and consideration of amendments to a deeply flawed, risky legislative plan.
The Lawful Access Privacy Risks: Unpacking Bill C-22’s Expansive Metadata Retention Requirements
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.
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