Privacy czar calls for greater powers on telecom data sharing

Interim Privacy Commissioner Chantal Bernier said Tuesday that new legislation is needed to compel Canada’s telecom companies to disclose when they hand over subscribers’ private information to other parties, including government agencies, without a warrant. Bernier, speaking at a Senate transport and communications committee hearing into privacy and data collection policies at BCE Inc., said her office is unaware how many government requests are made for customer data or how many of them are fulfilled. “We have tried many times, we have sought out information from the telecoms to find out and they've given us very general comments,” she said to reporters after the hearing. Telecom companies gave industry-wide data to the privacy commissioner in late 2011 on warrantless data-sharing that showed the government makes nearly 1.2 million requests for subscriber personal info data per year on average, Bernier’s office said late Tuesday. The current rules do not require companies to notify subscribers when their information is handed over. Bernier said the government should oblige companies to release detailed data on the sharing of customers’ personal information. “It would give a form of oversight by empowering citizens to see what the scope of the phenomenon is,” she said. What is needed, she said told the Senate committee, is legislation to help her office address the disparity in power between companies and the average Canadian customer. “That imbalance can only be resolved if the regulator has more power,” Bernier said, pointing to provisions in a bill before the Senate that would give her office a longer timeline for filing investigations and broaden its ability to negotiate with companies to improve compliance and impose sanctions. Bernier’s office is currently investigating Bell’s use of personal data after receiving 170 complaints, she said, adding that the investigation should be finished by the end of the year. The Senate hearing comes after Bell said in October 2013 that the company will begin tracking its subscribers’ Internet and TV-viewing habits, as well as their mobile calling patterns and mobile application use, to help advertisers better target consumers. Bernier told the hearing that because of that ongoing investigation she could not comment directly on Bell’s policies, and spoke in generalities about privacy and protection of personal information at Canadian telecom companies. The hearing continues Wednesday night, with Bell Canada’s privacy ombudsman William Abbott and chief legal officer Mirko Bibic due to testify. In March, the government released documents that revealed telecom companies handed over personal information from their subscribers, including call records and website visits, more than 18,000 times between April 2012 and March 2013. In February, the Wire Report reported how academics were concerned that a request for similar information would be stymied by rules from Public Safety that prohibits the sharing of data on communications interceptions. The responses the academics received from the telecoms companies did not go far in answering their questions about information sharing between the carriers and government. Anti-cyberbullying legislation under discussion in Parliament would expand the government's ability to access customer data from telecom companies without a warrant. — With reporting by Peter Henderson at phenderson@thewirereport.ca and editing by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca

Privacy czar calls for greater powers on telecom data sharing

News | April 29, 2014

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Privacy czar calls for greater powers on telecom data sharing

News | April 29, 2014

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