Thursday, November 17, 2005

Privacy advocates blast Web surveillance bill

Privacy advocates blast Web surveillance bill
Federal provision would give police forces additional Internet
surveillance abilities

Globe and Mail/CAMPBELL CLARK | November 16 2005



OTTAWA -- A new bill would allow police forces to demand that Internet
service providers hand over identifying information on their customers
without a warrant, including e-mail addresses, telephone numbers and
Internet locators known as IP addresses.

The provision is included in a federal bill that would require
telecommunications companies to "build in" the capacity to intercept
e-mail, Web surfing and telephone activity of thousands of individuals
at a time.

Privacy advocates say the bill goes too far in building surveillance
machinery without enough safeguards to protect the privacy of innocent
people.

Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan argued that the bill will merely
update existing law so that organized criminals and child pornographers
can be placed under surveillance. She noted that court orders are still
required before the police can conduct wiretaps on someone's phone or
Internet communications.

But one provision, which would require Internet companies to hand over a
variety of identifying information about subscribers, was attacked
yesterday as giving police too much latitude to snoop into Canadians'
private lives.

The information includes telephone numbers, addresses, e-mail addresses
and IP addresses, which can identify a person's computer to the operator
of a website that the person is viewing.

"There are no limits on it," said New Democratic MP Joe Comartin, the
party's justice critic. "I don't think they should be entitled to ask
for that unless it's part of an investigation and it should be
authorized, as part of that investigation, through a judicial warrant."

Public Safety officials said the bill also prevents Internet companies
from revealing how often the police request such information, although
they said that the police must keep records and privacy commissioners
will be able to review them.

That is a lower level of safeguard than exists for intercept warrants,
however. The government must report how many such court orders are
authorized each year; seizure warrants are made public after they are
executed unless they have been sealed by a court.

The bill would require telecommunications companies across the country
to build in capacity that, when combined, would be enough to conduct
round-the-clock monitoring of the Internet or telephone communications
of more than 8,000 people at a time.

The police can already obtain warrants to intercept e-mail and other
electronic communication, but the companies that provide services such
as e-mail are not always able to do the taps and transmit the
intercepted communications to police as it occurs.

Ms. McLellan defended the bill.

"First of all, it's not a vast system. In fact, we are well behind other
nations to which we regularly compare ourselves as it relates to the
ability for law enforcement to intercept certain kinds of new
technologies," she said.

Public Safety officials said that there have been "numerous" cases in
which police investigations were blocked because Internet companies
could not conduct taps, but they said they didn't have statistics on how
often that has happened.

Mr. Comartin said that if the Canadian government were serious about
combatting child pornography, it would enact tougher laws so that
Internet service providers can act to prevent it.



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