On the same day that revelations about CSEC spying on the Brazilian government for economic purposes generated headlines around the world, the Canadian government rejected the proposed acquisition of MTS Allstream’s Allstream division by Accelero Capital Holdings, a company co-founded by Naguib Sawiris, an Egyptian billionaire who first captured Canadian […]
Surveillance: America's Pastime by Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: naixn, Jason Smith / feastoffun.com) (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Surveillance
Public Safety Foreshadowed Rejection of MTS Allstream-Accelero With 2011 Foreign Investment Concerns
Privacy Commissioners Struggle to Confront Surveillance Issues at Annual Conference
The 35th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners wraps up today in Warsaw, Poland. The conference has become an important annual event, facilitating greater global cooperation on privacy and providing the commissioners with a venue to speak out on key privacy issues. This year, the commissioners issued one declaration (on the “appification” of society) and nine resolutions. The resolutions cover a wide range of issues including profiling, international enforcement, anchoring privacy in international law, and web tracking.
Yet despite the enormous public attention to surveillance issues over the past few months, there are no specific resolutions on the issue. In fact, surveillance is only mentioned once, in a resolution on openness of personal data practices which urges organizations to be more open about their practices and adds that governments should do the same. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission abstained from voting on the resolution due to the reference to governments. The U.S. may have been particularly uncomfortable with the final paragraph in the explanatory note:
The Issue with CSEC Handing over encryption codes to the NSA
I talked to Global News about the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) handing over encryption codes to the NSA. Canada appears to have opened a backdoor for surveillance by the USA.
Canada Complicit in Undermining Internet Privacy
As the tidal wave of disclosures on widespread U.S. surveillance continues – there is now little doubt that the U.S. government has spent billions creating a surveillance infrastructure that covers virtually all Internet and wireless communications – the question of Canada’s role in these initiatives remains largely shrouded in secrecy.
The Canadian government has said little, but numerous reports suggest that agencies such as the Communications Security Establishment Canada (the CSE is the Canadian counterpart to the U.S. National Security Agency) are engaged in similar kinds of surveillance. This includes capturing metadata of Internet and wireless communications and working actively with foreign intelligence agencies to swap information obtained through the data mining of Internet-based surveillance.
My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes the active connection between Canadian and U.S. officials moved to the forefront last week with reports that Canadian officials may have played a starring role in facilitating U.S. efforts to create a “backdoor” to widely used encryption standards. That initiative has been described as “undermining the very fabric of the Internet.”
Canada Complicit in Undermining Internet Privacy
Appeared in the Toronto Star on September 14, 2013 as Canada Complicit in Undermining Internet Privacy As the tidal wave of disclosures on widespread U.S. surveillance continues – there is now little doubt that the U.S. government has spent billions creating a surveillance infrastructure that covers virtually all Internet and […]
Recent Posts
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 231: Sara Bannerman on How Canadian Political Parties Maximize Voter Data Collection and Minimize Privacy Safeguards 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 230: Aengus Bridgman on the 2025 Federal Election, Social Media Platforms, and Misinformation 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 229: My Digital Access Day Keynote – Assessing the Canadian Digital Policy Record 
Queen’s University Trustees Reject Divestment Efforts Emphasizing the Importance of Institutional Neutrality 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 228: Kumanan Wilson on Why Canadian Health Data Requires Stronger Privacy Protection in the Trump Era
