Colin Freeze of the Globe and Mail reports this morning that many critics are alarmed by the potential scope of metadata collection by the Canadian government. This concern is heightened after this week’s news that Canadian Border Services requested the phone information of almost 19,000 customers from large telecoms: Privacy experts are alarmed by the […]
Paul McLoed of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald is reporting that Canadian telecoms provided individual customer data to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) over 18,000 times in one year. This data includes the content of voice mails and text messages, websites visited and the rough location of where a cellphone call was made. The story suggests that […]
In the video above, Edward Snowden delivers a fascinating TED Talk discussing freedom, privacy and how to take back the internet. From Snowden’s latest documents, the Washington Post reported yesterday that the NSA is capable of capturing all of the phone calls made in America and reviewing the content of the calls for up to […]
This past weekend, Colin Freeze of the Globe and Mail published details of his exclusive two-hour conversation with CSEC. The interview covered various topics including the ongoing debate over the collection of metadata, and whether or not Canadians can simply trust the agency to act in their best interests: In other words, CSEC can collect […]
Andrew Mitrovica wrote a sarcastic, but unfortunately truthful, editorial about the lack of appropriate oversight of CSEC for this morning’s Ottawa Citizen: Plouffe’s ruling — which, predictably, was an almost verbatim reflection of the legal semantics offered up by CSEC, the PMO and the minister of national defence to defend the agency’s egregious actions — […]
Commissioner Cavoukian spoke to the CBC”s Greg Weston about the Commissioner of the Communications Security Establishment Canada concluding that the agency was not involved in “tracking of Canadians or persons in Canada.” CSEC isn’t tracking? I don’t know what that means…Does he [Plouffe] mean that collecting metadata can’t equal the tracking of Canadians? ~Commissioner Cavoukian The […]
The Mississauga News‘ Chris Horobin posted a convincing editorial this morning urging Canadians to push for improved laws to ensure protection from mass surveillance: Do you care that our own government is so cravenly collecting our personal data? The agency denies it, of course. So maybe American whistleblower Edward Snowden is wrong? His track record on […]
Dr. Ann Cavoukian and Avner Levin, Director of the Privacy and Cyber Crime Institute at Ryerson University, wrote the following important op-ed for this morning’s National Post: Last week, Canadians learned that the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) conducted a sweeping 2012 mobile, WiFi-driven warrantless surveillance operation. The operation involved the processing of at least two […]
Kent Roach wrote an insightful editorial for this morning’s Ottawa Citizen. He suggests that Canadians need to revisit the vague laws which govern our surveillance: Conclusions of legality are only as good as the underlying law. CSEC’s mandate is broad. It includes acquiring information from the global information infrastructure for the purpose of providing foreign […]
The Toronto Star‘s Thomas Walkom spoke with Commissioner Cavoukian yesterday about mass surveillance and published a powerful column about the methods of CSEC: First, as Ontario information and privacy commissioner Ann Cavoukian points out, so-called metadata contains detailed information about individuals. In a July report, Cavoukian said metadata snooping allows the security forces to determine who […]
