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Privacy

The Day We Fight Back Against Mass Internet Surveillance: What Canadians Can Do

Over the past eight months, the steady stream of Snowden leaks have revealed the existence of a massive surveillance infrastructure intent on capturing seemingly all communications, including metadata on phone calls, Internet searches, and other online activity. While much of the surveillance originates with the U.S. NSA, the leaks suggest […]

February 11, 2014 — 13 comments — News

Against Oversight: Why Fixing the Oversight of Canadian Surveillance Won’t Solve the Problem

Last summer, I discussed the Snowden leaks and concerns about Canadian surveillance activities with a senior government official. The official remarked that in the wake of the Snowden revelations the political risk did not lie with surveillance itself, since most Canadians basically trusted their government and intelligence agencies to avoid misuse (the steady stream of Snowden leaks and Canada’s increasingly apparent role may have changed this analysis). Rather, the real concern was with being caught lying about the surveillance activities. This person was of the view that Canadians would accept surveillance, but they would not accept lying about surveillance programs.

Those comments came to mind over the past week with the latest revelations about CSEC metadata surveillance. While the story has been characterized as an airport wifi surveillance issue, it is clear that the airport wifi angle misses the real concern. The leaked document and subsequent explanations reveal an attempt to identify travel patterns and geographic locations using user ID data over a two week period provided by a Canadian source (CSEC referred to this as metadata in the Senate committee hearing yesterday) along with a database of geo-locations of IP addresses supplied by Quova (I once served as an advisor to Quova). By identifying airport wifi IP addresses along with broader usage data and geo-identifying information, CSEC hopes to be able to identify locational movements of individual users. Bruce Schneier provides a helpful review of the likely intent of the program.

While some argued the program tracks Canadians and is therefore illegal (citing Charter violations and activities beyond the CSEC mandate), the Justice Minister maintains the program is legal and CSEC has defended the program in a release the day after the story broke and again at the Senate committee yesterday. Moreover, the CSEC Commissioner has posted a somewhat cryptic statement that emphasizes the independence of the review process. Ryan Gallagher has responded to those statements with a post arguing the denials are hollow.

February 4, 2014 — 16 comments — News

Rod Breakenridge Interview Discussing the Impact of CSEC Collecting Metadata

I appeared on Rob Breakenridge’s Show to discuss the impact of CSEC collecting metadata. Listen to or download the podcast here.

February 4, 2014 — Comments are Disabled — News Interviews, Tv / Radio

Why Canada’s Telecom Companies Should Come Clean About Customer Information

Earlier this week, I wrote a column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) arguing that Canada’s telecom companies should come clean about their disclosures of customer information. That column was in response to a public letter from leading civil liberties groups and academics sent to Canada’s leading telecom companies asking them to shed new light into their data retention and sharing policies. The letter writing initiative, which was led by Christopher Parsons of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, is the latest attempt to address the lack of transparency regarding how and when Canadians’ personal information may be disclosed without their knowledge to law enforcement or intelligence agencies.

That initiative has now effectively been joined by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and NDP MP Charmaine Borg. Chantal Bernier, the interim Privacy Commissioner of Canada, released recommendations yesterday designed to reinforce privacy protections in the age of cyber-surveillance. The report includes the following recommended reform to PIPEDA:

require public reporting on the use of various disclosure provisions under PIPEDA where private-sector entities such as telecommunications companies release personal information to national security entities without court oversight.

January 29, 2014 — 5 comments — Columns

Why Canada’s Telecom Companies Should Come Clean About Customer Information

Appeared in the Toronto Star on January 25, 2014 as Why Canada’s Telecoms Should Come Clean About Customer Information Last week I joined leading civil liberties groups and academics in a public letter sent to Canada’s leading telecom companies asking them to shed new light into their data retention and […]

January 28, 2014 — 1 comment — Columns Archive