Online advocates say high costs could bankrupt small service providers
Jorge Barrera
Sun
Government legislation introduced in Parliament on Thursday will help authorities catch up to the “bad guys” who’ve had the run of cyberspace for too long, said Justice Minister Rob Nicholson.
The two pieces of legislation would allow police to remotely trigger existing tracking devices on cellphones and cars, and force Internet providers to cough up information on their subscribers to police, said Nicholson.
“Law enforcement has not been able to keep up with new technologies to investigate crimes,” Nicholson told reporters. “Twenty-first-century technology calls for 21st-century tools.”
The legislation would also force Internet service providers to install interception technology on their systems that would allow warrant-carrying police to monitor Internet communication — including text, voice or video messages — as they happen.
Police currently face a patchwork of responses from Internet providers, as some comply immediately, others delay, and some demand a warrant before releasing the information. Others simply do not have the capabilities allowing for cyber wiretapping.
A three-year exemption was included for small providers with fewer than 100,000 subscribers, and the federal government may partially reimburse some companies for the added costs.
In addition, the legislation would allow police to issue a preservation order to temporarily “quick-freeze” a service provider’s data related to specific communications or a subscriber’s information until authorities return with a warrant to obtain the data. Service providers keep subscriber data — including log-in and log-out times and e-mail messages — for various, mostly business reasons, but the data is often not held in perpetuity.
If passed, the legislation would also make it illegal to possess a computer virus for the purpose of infecting other computers. It would also make it a crime for someone to make arrangements for another person to engage in the sexual abuse of a child — a change that would help undercover child-pornography operations.
The new legislation was praised by police chiefs who attended Thursday’s announcement. “There should not be any safe haven for organized crime and child predators,” said Halifax chief Frank Beazley.
But some Internet-policy experts said they were concerned about clauses requiring Internet service providers to provide information on their subscribers — including names, telephone numbers and Internet protocol addresses — to police and intelligence authorities without a warrant.
“The government has gone 180 degrees in the wrong direction,” said David Fewer, acting director of the University of Ottawa‘s Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic. “They should need a warrant to get this.”
An IP address is a key piece of identification that acts as a print left on the cyber landscape.
“When you surf the Internet, it’s like leaving tracks in the snow,” said Fewer. “You can’t tell by the footprint who it is, but you may be able to tell where it comes from. The [service provider] can match up your IP with your name.”
Tom Copeland, president of Internet service provider eagle.ca, has a different concern. The costs associated with installing interception technology on service-provider systems may force some smaller players out of business.
“The margins aren’t in it for them,” said Copeland, who is also the chairman of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers. “Some of them would be looking at selling their businesses and closing their doors.”
A Bell Canada spokeswoman said, “The costs of policing should not be downloaded on to one particular industrial sector. Other funding mechanisms must be found.”
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