This morning, I wrote about the fact that the Canadian government got access from Canadian cell carriers to eavesdrop on Canadians. Now The Globe And Mail who broke the original story is now following up that story with the news that the Canadian government tried to use the upcoming spectrum auction to get even more access:
The federal government tried to use an impending public-airwaves auction to alter the language of a surveillance accord with mobile-phone companies, acting on concerns that police lack the tools to lawfully intercept Internet data that passes through smartphones.
Records show that, following consultation with industry officials, the government pulled back on some of the proposed changes, which were not discussed publicly.
Here’s why you might want to pay attention to this:
Cutting through the jargon, observers say the proposed change would have opened up a vast new realm of surveillance on Internet data passing through Canadian mobile phones – not to mention a Pandora’s box of potential privacy problems.
“The changes that are proposed by Industry Canada represent a significant expansion of what communications could be placed under surveillance,” wrote Christopher Parsons, a PhD candidate at the University of Victoria and an expert in digital-privacy issues, in a blog posting early this year.
He wrote that the contemplated change would amount to an “entirely new means of communication that may be captured (e.g. e-mail, streaming music and video usage, TV-watching, gaming over wireless networks, etc.). … Thus, whereas carriers previously had a limited set of clear interception requirements, this simple change in language would substantially expand what they would be required to be able to intercept and preserve.”
This does not give me the warm fuzzies. Earlier today I mentioned that I see the need for this and I’m not shocked that this is going on, but I would like to know when and how this is used and what oversight there is. But now after reading this latest article, I really feel that this has to brought out for discussion in the public realm sooner rather than later. The fact that this is basically being done behind closed doors is troubling and undemocratic. I truly believe that we can and should do better.
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This entry was posted on September 16, 2013 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada, National Security, Privacy, wireless. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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More Revelations Regarding CDN Gov’t Cell Carrier Access
This morning, I wrote about the fact that the Canadian government got access from Canadian cell carriers to eavesdrop on Canadians. Now The Globe And Mail who broke the original story is now following up that story with the news that the Canadian government tried to use the upcoming spectrum auction to get even more access:
The federal government tried to use an impending public-airwaves auction to alter the language of a surveillance accord with mobile-phone companies, acting on concerns that police lack the tools to lawfully intercept Internet data that passes through smartphones.
Records show that, following consultation with industry officials, the government pulled back on some of the proposed changes, which were not discussed publicly.
Here’s why you might want to pay attention to this:
Cutting through the jargon, observers say the proposed change would have opened up a vast new realm of surveillance on Internet data passing through Canadian mobile phones – not to mention a Pandora’s box of potential privacy problems.
“The changes that are proposed by Industry Canada represent a significant expansion of what communications could be placed under surveillance,” wrote Christopher Parsons, a PhD candidate at the University of Victoria and an expert in digital-privacy issues, in a blog posting early this year.
He wrote that the contemplated change would amount to an “entirely new means of communication that may be captured (e.g. e-mail, streaming music and video usage, TV-watching, gaming over wireless networks, etc.). … Thus, whereas carriers previously had a limited set of clear interception requirements, this simple change in language would substantially expand what they would be required to be able to intercept and preserve.”
This does not give me the warm fuzzies. Earlier today I mentioned that I see the need for this and I’m not shocked that this is going on, but I would like to know when and how this is used and what oversight there is. But now after reading this latest article, I really feel that this has to brought out for discussion in the public realm sooner rather than later. The fact that this is basically being done behind closed doors is troubling and undemocratic. I truly believe that we can and should do better.
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This entry was posted on September 16, 2013 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada, National Security, Privacy, wireless. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.