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 […]
Commissioner Cavoukian appeared on last night’s Power and Politics to discuss the urgent need for more oversight of CSEC and the true value of metadata. Though both the Prime Minister’s National Security Advisor, Stephen Rigby, and the head of CSEC, John Forster, tried to dismiss the importance of metadata as simply “data about data”, this […]
Last night, Greg Weston of CBC’s National (video above) delivered the latest revelation from the Edward Snowden documents that CSEC had tracked thousands of ordinary airline passengers through major airports and for days after. Experts including Dr. Cavoukian, Wesley Wark and Ron Diebert weighed on the new CSEC document in the video below: Ron Deibert […]
Toronto, ON, January 15, 2014 — The Edward Snowden revelations have highlighted how little Canadians know about their own government’s surveillance operations. The questionable activities of the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) and its “Five Eyes” partner, the NSA, have shown that we are vulnerable to both indiscriminate data collection and warrantless surveillance. There has […]
This past weekend, Colin Freeze of the Globe and Mail published a detailed overview of how CSEC became such a large organization. The agency’s growth since the events of 9/11 have been enormous and its budget has increased by more than $175 million. The article describes its framework and responsibilities, its historic relationship with the “Five Eyes” […]
I have been deeply concerned by the steady stream of revelations arising from Edward Snowden, especially around the activities of the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) and its role in the so-called “Five Eyes” signals intelligence alliance. While Canadians continue to be kept in the dark about CSEC’s activities, journalist Glen Greenwald has warned there […]
This month’s Government Purchasing Guide features an article by Dr. Cavoukian and Michelle Chibba discussing the growth of security and the enormous value of embedding privacy in the design of systems. “Surveillance is growing, especially as governments consider the implications of recent terrorism-related developments in North America. Some 20 years ago, Supreme Court of Canada […]
This week, Wired’s Richard Stallman published an opinion piece which asks the pertinent question “How Much Surveillance Can Democracy Withstand?” The article discusses the pressing need to design privacy into all our systems to help prevent mass data collection. He warns that data can always be misused and democracy may be in danger if we […]
In her latest video blog, Commissioner Cavoukian discusses her and Professor Khaled El Emam’s new methodology called “Privacy-Protective Surveillance,” (PPS). Created as a response to the shocking revelations of mass surveillance from both the NSA and CSEC, the new methodology provides governments with effective measures to counteract terrorism while preserving our essential rights and freedoms.
Dan Blum’s latest blog for Securty Architect features a number of positive news items. The first being several links to articles noting congressional efforts to rein in the electronic surveillance of U.S. civilians. Further to that, Blum discusses the importance of Dr. Ann Cavoukian and Dr. Khaled El Emam’s new paper, Privacy-Protective Surveillance: Achieving Privacy […]
