XPost: can.politics, bc.politics, ont.politics   
   XPost: ab.politics   
   From: "@nyet.ca   
      
   CBC News Posted: May 26, 2014   
      
   Privacy pushback: 6 ways your rights could be threatened   
      
   Laws and government-sanctioned activities could jeopardize civil liberties   
      
      
      
   Government efforts to thwart cyberbullying or data breaches affecting   
   those who shop online come cloaked in good intentions.   
      
   So do high-level national security efforts that are almost always billed   
   as protecting the common good.   
      
   But in all those efforts, laws or government-sanctioned activities often   
   spark concerns about civil liberties and the right to privacy being   
   threatened.   
      
   On Monday, the federal New Democrats called for a group of independent   
   experts to investigate warrantless data collection by the federal   
   government.   
      
   Here's a look at some recent legislation and other developments that   
   have raised privacy concerns.   
      
      
   PIPEDA   
      
   The federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act   
   (PIPEDA), updated in April 2011, governs how businesses collect and   
   handle personal information in Canada.   
      
   Last week, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association said it has filed an   
   application, with a private citizen named Chris Parsons, in Ontario   
   Superior Court to have parts of PIPEDA struck down and declared   
   unconstitutional.   
      
   The legal action came after media reports that branches of the federal   
   government, including the Canada Border Services Agency, routinely   
   accesses telecom customer data without a warrant, as PIPEDA allows.   
      
        Federal privacy law faces constitutional challenge   
      
      
      
   Digital Privacy Act   
      
   Bill S-4, which would amend PIPEDA and is supposed to better protect   
   Canadians from fraud and data breaches, has attracted the attention of   
   University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist.   
      
   He has warned that it would also allow organizations to disclose   
   personal information of subscribers or customers without a court order.   
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   Ontario privacy commissioner Ann Cavoukian says the bill proposes to   
   allow more warrantless disclosure of personal information by the private   
   sector.   
      
   "Absent sufficient transparency and accountability requirements, this   
   type of unsupervised disclosure is dangerous to our fundamental right to   
   privacy," she said in a recent statement.   
      
   "Of course, we deserve more transparency and accountability from the   
   private sector on their disclosure practices, but we also deserve no   
   less from law enforcement and government on how often and for what   
   purposes they collect our personal information."   
      
   Conservative Senator Leo Housakos has said the bill would give Canadians   
   new protections when they surf and shop online.   
      
   Internet advocates say the federal legislation could also put Canadians   
   at risk in cases of alleged copyright infringement by opening them up to   
   copyright "trolls," businesses that could acquire names and threaten   
   costly lawsuits over improper downloads.   
      
      
   Cybercrime bill   
      
   Cavoukian has also raised concerns about "overreaching surveillance   
   powers" in Bill C-13, the federal government's proposed legislation to   
   fight cybercrime.   
      
   Cavoukian says the legislation would entrench warrantless law   
   enforcement practices.   
      
   Among other goals, the bill aims to make it a crime to distribute   
   intimate images without the consent of the person in the pictures. Other   
   provisions in the bill would allow police to force internet service   
   providers to hand over customer information without a warrant.   
      
      
   CSEC activities at Canadian airports   
      
   Some privacy and internet experts were enraged in February after a   
   federal watchdog exonerated Canada's electronic spy agency of using data   
   from an airport internet service to track travellers after they left the   
   terminal.   
      
   Cyber expert Ron Deibert said the ruling regarding the actions of   
   Communications Security Establishment Canada made a "mockery of public   
   accountability and oversight.”   
      
   The watchdog said CSEC was just collecting metadata in an effort "to   
   understand global communications networks."   
      
        CSEC exoneration a 'mockery of public accountability'   
      
      
   Telecoms under pressure   
      
   Interim Privacy Commissioner Chantal Bernier   
      
   Interim privacy commissioner Chantal Bernier says telecom companies are   
   refusing to tell her office how many times they have handed over   
   personal customer information to the federal government without a   
   warrant. (Canadian Press)   
      
   Canada's interim privacy commissioner has turned her attention to   
   telecom companies and says they are refusing to tell her office how many   
   times they have handed over personal customer information to the federal   
   government without a warrant.   
      
   Chantal Bernier said last month that her office has repeatedly asked   
   telecom companies to disclose statistics and the scope of warrantless   
   disclosure of data, to no avail.   
      
   Bernier would like to see statistics published so Canadians know how   
   often their personal information is given to the government without a   
   warrant.   
      
   "It would give a form of oversight by empowering citizens to see what   
   the scope of the phenomenon is."   
      
        Telecoms refuse to release information on private data given to feds   
      
      
   NSA surveillance   
      
   Disclosures of top-secret security documents by Edward Snowden, a former   
   contractor for the U.S. National Security Agency, set off a cascade of   
   controversy and unleashed a privacy scandal that made headlines around   
   the world.   
      
   Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives made the first legislative   
   response to the Snowden revelations, passing legislation that would end   
   the NSA's bulk gathering of American phone records.  The bill will now   
   be considered by the U.S. Senate.   
      
   But privacy and civil liberties activists were not impressed.   
      
   "This legislation was designed to prohibit bulk collection, but has been   
   made so weak that it fails to adequately protect against mass,   
   untargeted collection of Americans' private information," Nuala   
   O'Connor, president and CEO of the Centre for Democracy and Technology,   
   said in a statement.   
      
   Several documents leaked by Snowden had Canadian ties, included the ones   
   that revealed CSEC was using airport Wi-Fi to track passengers. Others   
   stated that Canada allowed the U.S. to do surveillance in the country   
   during the G8 and G20 summits in Ontario in 2010.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)