Canadian Government Consultation on Lawful Access

On his Canadian Privacy Law Blog, David Fraser has posted about the upcoming law access consultations organized by Public Safety Canada:

"The purpose of this consultation is to provide a range of stakeholders - including police and industry representatives and groups interested in privacy and victims of crime issues - with an opportunity to identify their current views on possible approaches to updating Canada’s lawful access provisions as they relate to law enforcement and national security officials’ need to gain access to CNA [customer name and address] information in the course of their duties. The possible scope of CNA information to be obtained is later identified, but it should be noted from the outset that it would not, in any formulation, include the content of communications or the Web sites an individual visited while online".

Comments from University of Ottawa's Michael Geist. More background from the Sept. 12 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation story Government moving to access personal info, sparking privacy fears.

Earlier Library Boy posts on lawful access include:

• Government policies may point to more restrictive Internet (March 7, 2005): "In his regular Law Bytes column in the Toronto Star, University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist argues that the days of the Internet as a realm of unlimited access and unlimited possibility are under threat from a number of potential policy developments (...) Among the threats Geist identifies are the federal government's lawful access initiative that would allow for easier interception of private communications (...)"
• List of Electronic Surveillance Laws in the U.S. (December 22, 2005): "For Canadian material, one can have a look at the lawful access section of the CIPPIC website. CIPPIC is the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic based at the University of Ottawa."
• Canadian Bar Association Worried About ISP Surveillance (July 8, 2006): "The Canadian Bar Association appears concerned that Internet service providers have been putting into place the technical capacity to monitor their customers' communications without proper authorization."
• Update on Canadian Internet Surveillance Proposals (October 30, 2006): "University of Ottawa law prof and Toronto Star columnist Michael Geist has published a piece about the state of the federal government's lawful access initiative. The idea behind lawful access is to provide Canada law enforcement with new, more sophisticated electronic surveillance tools to prevent and fight organized crime, money laundering and terrorist activities. Geist analyzes various internal government documents recently obtained under the Access to Information Act that show how authorities are attempting to deal with the initial negative public reaction to the proposals to expand police powers."