Craig McInnes has some nice reporting on the controversy over lawful access in Canada and legislative proposals:
[…]
B.C.’s Information and Privacy Commissioner is worried that Canadians don’t really understand what is at stake.
“I see lawful access as one of those fundamental tipping points,” Elizabeth Denham said in a telephone interview this week.
“If you are setting up private sector in a way that will provide easier access to the police, that’s shifting our fundamental outlook about privacy and civil rights protections of constitutional rights.”
Under the proposed changes, if police want to know what people are saying on the Internet, they will still need to get a warrant. But Internet providers would be required to turn over on request information that includes subscribers names and addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and even their ISP addresses and information about the kind of machines and software they are using.
“These appear to be minor pieces of personal information but they are personal information and it’s a slippery slope to give them up without judicial oversight,” Denham says.
Read more on Vancouver Sun.