Lawful Access

Accountability and Government Surveillance

/ Christopher Parsons / 3 Comments

Charmaine Borg, MPThe issue of lawful access has repeatedly arisen on the Canadian federal agenda. Every time that the legislation has been introduced Canadians have opposed the notion of authorities gaining warrantless access to subscriber data, to the point where the most recent version of the lawful access legislation dropped this provision. It would seem, however, that the real motivation for dropping the provision may follow from the facts on the ground: Canadian authorities already routinely and massively collect subscriber data without significant pushback by Canada’s service providers. And whereas the prior iteration of the lawful access legislation (i.e. C–30) would have required authorities to report on their access to this data the current iteration of the legislation (i.e. C–13) lacks this accountability safeguard.

In March 2014, MP Charmaine Borg received responses from federal agencies (.pdf) concerning the agencies’ requests for subscriber-related information from telecommunications service providers (TSPs). Those responses demonstrate extensive and unaccountable federal government surveillance of Canadians. I begin this post by discussing the political significance of MP Borg’s questions and then proceed to granularly identify major findings from the federal agencies’ respective responses. After providing these empirical details and discussing their significance, I conclude by arguing that the ‘subscriber information loophole’ urgently needs to be closed and that federal agencies must be made accountable to their masters, the Canadian public.

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Lawful Access is Dead; Long Live Lawful Intercept!

/ Christopher Parsons

Honest PhoneLawful access was a contentious issue on the Canadian agenda when it was initially introduced by the Martin government, and has become even more disputed as subsequent governments have introduced their own iterations of the Liberal legislation. Last year the current majority government introduced Bill C-30, the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act. In the face of public outcry the government sent the bill to committee prior to a vote on second reading, and most recently declared the bill dead.

Last year I began research concerning alternate means of instituting lawful access powers in Canada. Specifically, I explored whether a ‘backdoor’ had been found to advance various lawful access powers: was Industry Canada, through the 700MHz spectrum consultation, and Public Safety, through its changes to how communications are intercepted, effectively establishing the necessary conditions for lawful access by compliance fiat?

In this post I try to work through aspects of this question. I begin by briefly unpacking some key elements of Bill C-30 and then proceed to give an overview of the spectrum consultation. This overview will touch on proposed changes to lawful intercept standards. I then suggest how changes to the intercept standards could affect Canadians, as well as (re)iterate the importance of publicly discussing expansions to lawful access and intercept powers instead of expanding these powers through regulatory and compliance backdoors.

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Understanding the Lawful Access Decryption Requirement

/ Christopher Parsons

Photo by walknboston

For several months I and a handful of others in the Canadian privacy and security community have been mulling over what Bill C-30, better known as Canada’s ‘lawful access’ legislation, might mean for the future of encryption policy in Canada. Today, I’m happy to announce that one of the fruits of these conversation, a paper that I’ve been working on with Kevin McArthur, is now public. The paper, titled “Understanding the Lawful Access Decryption Requirement,” spends a considerable amount of time considering the potential implications of the legislation. Our analysis considers how C-30 might force companies to adopt key escrows, or decryption key repositories. After identifying some of the problems associated with these repositories, we suggest how to amend the legislation to ensure that corporations will not have to establish key escrows. We conclude by outlining the dangers of leaving the legislative language as it stands today. The full abstract, and download link, follows.

Abstract

Canada’s lawful access legislation, Bill C-30, includes a section that imposes decryption requirements on telecommunications service providers. In this paper we analyze these requirements to conclude that they may force service providers to establish key escrow, or decryption key retention, programs. We demonstrate the significance of these requirements by analyzing the implications that such programs could have for online service providers, companies that provide client software to access cloud services, and the subscribers of such online services. The paper concludes by suggesting an amendment to the bill, to ensure that corporations will not have to establish escrows, and by speaking to the dangers of not implementing such an amendment.

Download paper at the Social Sciences Research Network

Canadian Social Media Surveillance: Today and Tomorrow

/ Christopher Parsons / 8 Comments

Image by Maureen Flynn-Burhoe

After disappearing for an extended period of time – to the point that the Globe and Mail reported that the legislation was dead – the federal government’s lawful access legislation is back on the agenda. In response to the Globe and Mail’s piece, the Public Safety Minister stated that the government was not shelving the legislation and, in response to the Minister’s statements, Open Media renewed the campaign against the bill. What remains to be seen is just how ‘lively’ this agenda item really is; it’s unclear whether the legislation remains on a back burner or if the government is truly taking it up.

While the politics of lawful access have been taken up by other parties, I’ve been pouring through articles and ATIP requests related to existing and future policing powers in Canada. In this post I first (quickly) outline communications penetration in Canada, with a focus on how social media services are used. This will underscore just how widely Canadians use digitally-mediated communications systems and, by extension, how many Canadians may be affected by lawful access powers. I then draw from publicly accessible sources to outline how authorities presently monitor social media. Next, I turn to documents that have been released through federal access to information laws to explicate how the government envisions the ‘nuts and bolts’ of their lawful access legislation. This post concludes with a brief discussion of the kind of oversight that is most appropriate for the powers that the government is seeking.

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Announcement: Lawful Access Report Now Available

/ Christopher Parsons

SpiesLast year the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) approached me to prepare a report around forthcoming lawful access legislation. Specifically, I was to look outside of Canada to understand how lawful access powers had been developed and used in foreign jurisdictions. An early version of that research report was provided to the BCCLA mid-last year and was used to support their recent, formal, report on lawful access legislation. The BCCLA’s formal report, “Moving Towards a Surveillance Society: Proposals to Expand “Lawful Access” in Canada” (.pdf) provides an excellent, in-depth, analysis of lawful access that accounts for some of the technical, social, and legal problems associated with the legislation.

Today I am releasing my report for the BCCLA, titled “Lawful Access and Data Preservation/Retention: Present Practices, Ongoing Harm, and Future Canadian Policies” (.pdf link). I would hasten to note that all research and proposals in my report should be attributed to me, and do not necessarily reflect the BCCLA’s own positions. Nothing in my report has been changed at the suggestion or insistence of the BCCLA; it is presented to you as it was to the BCCLA, though with slight updates to reflect the status of the current majority government.

In the report, I look to the United Kingdom and United States to understand how they have instantiated lawful access-style powers, the regularity of the powers’ usage, and how the powers have been abused. I ultimately conclude by providing a series of proposals to rein in the worst of lawful access legislation, which includes process-based suggestions (e.g. Parliamentary hearings on the legislation) and more gritty auditing requirements (e.g. a specific series of data points that should be collected and made public on a yearly basis).  It’s my hope that this document will elucidate some of the harms that are often bandied about when speaking of lawful access-powers. To this end, there are specific examples of harms throughout the document, all of which are referenced, with the conclusion being that citizens are not necessarily safer as a result of expanded security and intelligence powers that come at the cost of basic charter, constitutional, and human rights.

Download .pdf version of “Lawful Access and Data Preservation/Retention: Present Practices, Ongoing Harm, and Future Canadian Policies“

(Un)Lawful Access Forum in Ottawa

/ Christopher Parsons

I’ll be speaking at a forum about Canada’s forthcoming lawful access legislation on February 8 at St. Paul University. From 6pm-7pm there will be the formal book launch of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ recent title, The Internet Tree: The State of Telecom Policy in Canada 3.0. Those attending the forum may be particularly interested in the two chapters on surveillance (one of which I authored). The lawful access event runs from 7-10PM. From 7:00-7:30 the organizers will be showing the mini-documentaries “(Un)Lawful Access” and “Moving Towards a Surveillance Society.” Following this, there will be two panels to discuss the expected legislation. The first (which I’m on) runs from 7:30-8:30 and discusses the technical elements of the forthcoming legislation. The panel is composed of myself, Kirsten R. Embree, Stephen McCammon, and John Lawford. The second panel runs from 8:45 to 9:30, and focuses on the political dimensions of the legislation. Panelists include Charlie Angus and Elizabeth May, with Michael Geist moderating. The final 30 minutes are devoted to summarizing the forum, outlining actions that are taking place, and suggesting continuing activities.

For more information about the event, see Unlawfulaccess.ca, and register for the event on Facebook. You can also download/print/share copies of the poster for the event. This will be a really great event, and the mixture of formally separated technical and political panels should do a great job in outlining the range of issues that lawful access legislation touches upon.