Privacy

The Issues Surrounding Subscriber Information in Bill C-30

/ Christopher Parsons / 12 Comments

SIMThe most recent version of the Canadian Government’s lawful access legislation is upon us. The legislation expands the powers available to the police, imposes equipment- and training-related costs on Telecommunications Service Providers (TSPs), enables TSPs to voluntarily provide consumer information to authorities without a warrant, forces TSPs to provide subscriber data without warrant, and imposes gag orders on TSPs who comply with lawful access powers. Economic and civil rights costs are, as of yet, murky. Despite being an extremely lengthy piece of legislation, Bill C-30 lacks the specificity that should accompany serious expansions to Canadian policing and intelligence gathering powers.

In this post, I first outline a ‘subscriber data regime’ to discuss what does – and may – be entailed in accessing Canadians’ subscriber data. Second, I explain how subscriber data can be used for open-sourced intelligence gathering. Third, I argue that an administrative process of expanding subscriber identifiers is inappropriate. Finally, I articulate why warrants are so important, and why court approval should precede access to subscriber data. In aggregate, this post explicates the concerns that many civil advocates, academics, and technical experts have with access to subscriber information, why Canadians should be mindful of these concerns, and why Canadians should rebuff current efforts to expand warrantless access to subscriber information.

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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.

Publication: (Un)Lawful Access, Its Potentials, and its Lack of Necessity

/ Christopher Parsons

Cover of the 2011 Winston Report (Winter)

Last year I was approached by the founder and editor in chief of The Winston Report to update and publish one of my postings on Canada’s forthcoming lawful access legislation. The Report is the quarterly journal of the Canadian Association of Professional Access and Privacy Administrators (CAPAPA). The updated piece that I contributed is more compact than what I originally wrote on this site, though I think that this makes it a stronger, more direct piece. I want to publicly thank Sharon Polsky for the opportunity that she provided to me, and for being so kind as to position my piece as the lead featured article in the Winter edition of the journal. I also want to thank my tireless editor, Joyce Parsons, for her incredible work strengthening my prose. A preprint version of my contribution, which retained a creative-commons license as part of my agreement with the editor in chief, is made available to you below under the normal Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial 2.5 Canada license.

Download pre-print .pdf version of (Un)Lawful Access:  Its Potentials, and its Lack of Necessity.

Transparent Practices Don’t Stop Prejudicial Surveillance

/ Christopher Parsons

In February I’m attending iConference 2012, and helping to organize a workshop titled “Networked Surveillance: Access Control, Transparency, Power, and Circumvention in the 21st Century.” The workshop’s participants will consider whether networked surveillance challenges notions of privacy and neutrality, exploits openness of data protocols, or requires critical investigations into how these surveillance technologies are developed and regulated. Participants will be arriving from around the world, and speaking to one (or more) of the workshop’s four thematics: Access Control, Transparency, Power, and Circumvention. As part of the workshop, all participants must prepare a short position statement that identifies their interest in network surveillance while establishing grounds to launch a conversation. My contribution, titled “Transparent Practices Don’t Stop Prejudicial Surveillance,” follows.

Transparent Practices Don’t Stop Prejudicial Surveillance

Controversies around computer processing and data analysis technologies led to the development of Fair Information Practice Principles (FIPs), principles that compose the bedrocks of today’s privacy codes and laws. Drawing from lessons around privacy codes and those around Canadian ISPs’ surveillance practices, I argue that transparency constitutes a necessary but insufficient measure to mitigate prejudicial surveillance practices and technologies. We must go further and inject public values into development cycles while also intentionally hobbling surveillance technologies to rein in their most harmful potentialities.

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Respecting User Privacy in WordPress

/ Christopher Parsons / 4 Comments

5762345557_159d47408e_bAutomattic  has a poor record of respecting its users’ privacy, insofar as the company has gradually added additional surveillance mechanisms into their products without effectively notifying users. Several months ago when I updated the WordPress Stats plugin I discovered that Automattic had, without warning, integrated Quantcast tracking into their Stats plugin. Specifically, there was no notice in the update, no clear statement that data would be sent to Quantcast, nor any justification for the additional tracking other than in a web forum where their CEO stated it would let Automattic “provide some cool features around uniques and people counting.” This constituted a reprehensible decision, but one that can fortunately be mediated with a great third-party plugin.

In this post, I’m going to do a few things. First, I’m going to recount why Automattic is not respecting user privacy by including Quantcast in its Stats plugin. This will include a discussion about why reasonable users are unlikely to realize that third-party tracking is appended to the Stats plugin. I’ll conclude by discussing how you can protect your web visitors’ own privacy and security by installing a terrific plugin developed by Frank Goossens.

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