wiretap

Canadian Police Requests for Telecommunications Data

/ Christopher Parsons

2498847226_9beb1f55db_o-300x200In our report, “The Governance of Telecommunications Surveillance: How Opaque and Unaccountable Practices and Policies Threaten Canadians,” we discussed the regularity at which government agencies gain access to telecommunications data. Save for the Canadian Border Services Agency, federal government agencies that are principally responsible for conducting domestic telecommunications surveillance, such as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, could not account for how often they use their surveillance powers.

In the course of investigating government access to telecommunications data we also contacted regional policing departments. This post expands on findings we provided in our report to discuss, in depth, the data provided by responsive police departments. We conclude by asserting that new legislation must be introduced and passed so that Canadians become aware of the magnitude of contemporary telecommunications surveillance that policing organizations are involved in on a yearly basis.

Requests to Police Departments

We filed requests to Canadian police departments to determine how often individual departments were exercising telecommunications surveillance powers. Though our report principally focused on federal government agencies’ surveillance, we had hoped to effectively juxtapose provincial/municipal telecommunications surveillance against their federal brethren. We ultimately decided to not conduct a detailed juxtaposition in the report because an insufficient number of police departments responded to our legally-binding requests for access to government data in time for publication.

We filed requests for information to police departments operating in Nova Scotia, Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia. These requests identified the provincial statutes we were relying on to request information. We paid fees to the various police departments to initiate the processing of the requests. The only two police departments that were responsive to our requests were the Halifax and Vancouver police departments. The most notable non-responsive departments police the cities of Calgary and Toronto.

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CSIS’s New Powers Demand New Accountability Mechanisms

/ Christopher Parsons

6165458242_97e0572d03_oThe Government of Canada recently tabled Bill C-44, the Protection of Canada from Terrorists Act, in response to a series of court defeats concerning how the Canadian Intelligence and Security Service (CSIS) collects intelligence about Canadian residents. The federal courts took CSIS to task after Justice Richard Mosley realized that warrants issued to CSIS, which enabled CSIS to collaborate with Canada’s foreign signal intelligence agency to monitor Canadians abroad, were also being used to enlist the assistance of other nations’ signals intelligence agencies. In addition to the warrants not being issued with such foreign collaboration in mind there was — and remains — a judicial belief that CSIS’ lawyers deliberately misled the court when requesting the warrants.

The tabled legislation would not alleviate the ruling that CSIS lawyers misled the court. It would, however, authorize CSIS to apply for warrants which authorize the service to monitor Canadians abroad even if doing so would violate the laws of foreign nations. Moreover, CSIS would be empowered to request the assistance of foreign organizations in monitoring the aforementioned Canadians. The Act would also provide the government the power to prevent courts from publicly examining informants as well as to revoke citizenship under certain situations. Finally, the legislation further clarifies (and arguably extends) prohibitions on revealing the identity of CSIS officers. Continue reading →

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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Review: Privacy On The Line

/ Christopher Parsons

This updated edition of Diffie and Landau’s text is a must-have for anyone who is interested in how encryption and communicative privacy politics have developed in the US over the past century or so. Privacy On The Line moves beyond a ‘who did what’ in politics, instead seeing the authors bring their considerable expertise in cryptography to bear in order to give the reader a strong understanding of the actual methods of securing digital transactions. After reading this text, the reader will have a good grasp on what types of encryption methods have been used though history, and strong understandings of the value and distinction between digital security and digital privacy, as well as an understanding of why and how data communications are tracked.

The only disappointment is the relative lack of examination of how the US has operated internationally – there is very little mention of the OECD, nor of European data protection, to say nothing of APEC. While the authors do talk about the role of encryption in the context of export control, I was a bit disappointed at just how little they talked about the perceptions of American efforts abroad – while this might have extended slightly beyond the American-centric lens of the book, it would have added depth of analysis (though perhaps at the expense of making the book too long for traditional publication). One of the great elements of this book is an absolutely stunning bibliography, references, and glossary – 106 pages of useful reference material ‘fleshes out’ the already excellent analysis of encryption in the US.

Ultimately, if you are interested in American spy politics, or in encryption in contemporary times, or in how these two intersect in the American political arena, then this text is for you.