In an interview with the CBC, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews reveals that he hasn’t actually read or understood his own bill:
In an interview airing Saturday on CBC Radio’s The House, Toews said his understanding of the bill is that police can only request information from the ISPs where they are conducting “a specific criminal investigation.”
But Section 17 of the ‘Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act’ outlines “exceptional circumstances” under which “any police officer” can ask an ISP to turn over personal client information.
“I’d certainly like to see an explanation of that,” Toews told host Evan Solomon after a week of public backlash against Bill C-30, which would require internet service providers to turn over client information without a warrant.
“This is the first time that I’m hearing this somehow extends ordinary police emergency powers [to telecommunications]. In my opinion, it doesn’t. And it shouldn’t.”
As was detailed in a recent post on the Canadian Privacy Law Blog, Bill C-30 is riddled with nasty little booby traps, including a provision that prevents your ISP from telling you that your information has been given to the police (or other “inspectors” as designated by the minister) even after the investigation is complete. For that matter, there doesn’t even have to be a criminal investigation underway: if someone is given the role of “inspector” under this bill, they have the right to demand this information under any circumstances at all.
An update to that blog post since last time I linked to it:
Update (18 February 2012): It is really worth noting that this gag order is not new. It has existed in PIPEDA for quite some time. What is new is extending it to cover “lawful access” requests.
People should be aware that — I am told — in the vast majority of cases, internet service providers will willingly hand over customer information without a warrant when the police tell them that it is connected with a child exploitation investigation (using something cynically called a “PIPEDA Request”, which I’ve blogged about before). If your internet service provider hands over your information voluntarily, that’s also subject to the gag order in Section 9 of PIPEDA.
