Lawful Access Consultation Goes Public at Last

As you may have read in the press or online, Public Safety Canada and Industry Canada recently launched a consultation on Lawful Access: how and when telecommunication companies (including ISPs) should hand over customer names and addresses to law enforcement.

To call this a "public" consultation would be stretching it: the document was only passed around a limited number of stakeholders, and the government initially refused to allow it to be posted online. Its existence was not published in the Canada Gazette as is normally the case, and interested parties were only given until September 27 to make their comments. Within it, the departments hint that law enforcement should have access to personal information without a court order or other judicial checks.

The good news is that Public Safety Canada has now had an apparent change of heart - about the consultation, at least. The document has now been placed online, and the deadline for public comment extended by three weeks to October 12.

If you would like to make your voice heard, just follow the instructions provided by Public Safety, and let them know exactly how you feel.

What is (L)Awful Access?

Bill C-74, the Modernization of Investigative Techniques Act (MITA), was introduced by the Liberals shortly before the election call. It would have allowed law enforcement agencies to obtain identifying information about you without a warrant. Even worse, it would have forced communications providers to build surveillance back-doors into the hardware that routes our phone calls, Internet traffic, and more. With the election call, Bill C-74 is dead. However, it may well be re-introduced (with a new number) in the new Parliament.