Media ignoring Liberals’ attack on our Internet privacy rights
by Alan Shanoff
It’s strange how so many commentators have whipped themselves into a lather over the attack on privacy rights in Bill C-30, otherwise known as Protecting Children From Internet Predators Act, yet don’t appear troubled by another equally troubling infringement of privacy rights.
Anyone worried by the potential erosion of privacy rights in the Conservatives’ Bill C-30 should be even more concerned about the actual erosion of privacy rights in existing federal law known as the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).
Introduced by the Chretien Liberal government in 2000, PIPEDA has been in force for over a decade. It regulates the collection, use and disclosure of personal information by businesses.
In other words, it applies to cellphone and Internet service providers, phone companies, credit card companies and all other businesses that collect and track data on our daily activities.
It covers a wider range of businesses than C-30.
PIPEDA allows any business to disclose any personal information without the knowledge or consent of an individual to a government institution or part of a government institution (including a police officer), where the disclosure is requested for the purpose of enforcing or administering any law, or if the information is suspected to relate to national security.
The only limit on this is that the person requesting the information must have identified his or her “lawful authority”.
Courts have interpreted this “lawful authority” to include a police officer’s authority to investigate.
(Further, under the proposed terms of new legislation known as Bill C-12, PIPEDA will be amended to state police do not require a subpoena or warrant prior to making any request._
PIPEDA means every police officer in Canada has the power to request disclosure of personal information from any business collecting information from subscribers or customers.
True, there’s no legal compulsion on the business to supply the information but they often do, based on user agreements and their so-called privacy policies, which permit information to be supplied under “lawful authority”.
Yet it seems few, if any, commentators are concerned with PIPEDA.
Surely, for the sake of consistency, opponents of Bill C-30 should be demanding the government amend PIPEDA to define “lawful authority”, so that it requires the person making the request for disclosure has a judicial warrant backing up that request.
True, Bill C-30 goes a step beyond PIPEDA by legally requiring all telecommunication service providers to provide subscriber information, based solely on a written request, whereas PIPEDA doesn’t force, but allows, businesses to release the information.
Still, PIPEDA covers a wider range of businesses, allows for more information to be released based solely upon request and is accessible to any government institution, as well as police.
Arguably PIPEDA is more intrusive than C-30. Anyone objecting to one must logically object to the other.
That said, a particularly troubling aspect of C-30 relates to the compelled disclosure of subscriber information.
Such disclosure may seem innocuous at first blush.
After all, who could reasonably object to release of a subscriber’s name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, Internet protocol address and service provider identifier associated with the subscriber’s service and equipment?
But we can’t look at any one piece of information in isolation. While it in itself might reveal nothing of significance, it may be that same piece of information, when coupled with other data, leads to disclosure of significant facts,
For example, the IP address alone may be of no significance, but it may be the missing piece to a puzzle that leads to disclosure of personal information deserving of protection.
For these reasons even seemingly innocuous subscriber information shouldn’t be accessible to authorities without a warrant, unless of course, there’s an emergency situation.
Tags: Bill C 30
I’d like to turn this discussion on its head a bit. Once you realize how HARD (yes four letter word hard) to get a Warrant from a judge – you might change your mind.
How are law enforcement to go after an organization or group such as Anonymous? They will have deliberately shielded and hidden their identity through multiple tricks. They will have overtaken servers, etc. How can you explain this extremely technical stuff to a judge – when time is also a factor? We need to have law enforcement put in a position to protect our entire real society – banking, online services, our personal information etc – as well as virtual.
The problem we have created for ourselves is the anonymity of the internet. There is no constitutional right to anonymity. If you want to exercise free speech I can still take your picture or ask who you are. While you aren’t compelled to answer – the law enforcement authorities can physically stop you if you start to break the law. Online, you could rob a bank, a person, or take down the power grid with keystrokes from the comfort of your mother’s basement. How to stop that?
So while I may have issues with this particular bill, I would ask our MPs to begin acting like adults and as questions like I have just raised and come up with a law that will balance our rights, versus the protection of society.
Obtaining a warrant from a judge is not onerous or hard IF the police have sufficent GROUNDS for it in the first place. What investigation is so pressing that a warrantless search is justified? The investigation into the Vancouver riots took over 8 months even though the criminals had all provided photo-incriminating evidence of themselves commiting the crime! Internet porn investigations take weeks, months and often longer – plenty of time (and grounds) to obtain a legal warrant. It’s not as thou the investigators are going to prevent a crime in the nick-of-time! The crime has already been commited and the evidence is downloadable in graphic detail!! What judge is going to delay more than 24 hours with such obvious evidence used for grounds.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think I am – ONE of the reasons a legal warrant is obtained from a judge is so that any evidence gathered under that warrant is admissable in court!! That being so, a warrantless search risks any evidence obtained NOT being admissable!
A 2nd reason for a legal warrant would be sufficent and probable grounds whereas a warrantless search can too often end up being a fishing trip or totally without merit – such as the warrantless search for firearms of the father (Sanone?) of the 4 year-old who drew a crayon picture of dad defending her from bad guys and monsters!
Don’t be so willing to give up your rights or judicial protections to the authorities because while you’re giving up yours without protest – for whatever reason -, you’re also giving up mine and I do protest!
The arguable necessity or efficiency of any police power should never eliminate the scope of a healthy public debate over its merits. Since we are all in agreement that ideal police powers from the point of view of investigative efficiency are incompatible with the dignity of free man, by necessity there will be disagreement on where a careful balancing limit should be set. It is a sad fact that only a tiny fraction of cybercrime gets caught and at the price of very lengthy and expensive investigations. It is also a fact that much extremely private information is now imbeded in the cybersphere. It will always be easy to point out an instance when policing powers aided the prevention of crime or even major terrorism. Much more difficult is to quantify the loss of freedom and its long term effects on society.We should all fear the day when a deafening silence will be the answer to any extension of the state powers. Dictatorships rely heavily on the “efficiency” of surveillance.
There is a simple solution to this. People use to have a life previous to the internet, we only need to go back to our lives without the internet. Let’s make those Internet Service Providers go bankrupt for supporting such a Bill. On one hand we have to deal with this Bill or we can leave the internet, we don’t have a third options. If someone believe there is a way out other than just leaving the internet behind well you’re wrong. They want this Bill then let them have it, but without us to spy at.