Password disclosure law up for ‘public discussion’: Goodale

OTTAWA — The federal minister of public safety indicated Wednesday a willingness to engage with a freshly passed resolution from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) calling for a law to compel people to hand over passwords to devices seized under a search warrant. The CACP passed the resolution urging the government “to identify a legislative means for public safety agencies inclusive of law enforcement, through judicial authorization, to compel the holder of an encryption key or password to reveal it to law enforcement” on Tuesday as one of four adopted by the group at their annual conference. “In the course of this consultation about cyber security and national security, we will, in fact, be discussing the dimensions of what potential laws might look like,” Ralph Goodale told reporters after delivering a speech Wednesday morning at the CACP’s 111th annual gathering at the Westin Hotel in Ottawa. “This is a critically important subject area, one that, for one reason or another, has not been subject to adequate public discussion,” he added. “I think over the course of the fall, it will.” According to a document detailing the resolutions, the CACP describes “Internet and computer-related crime” as a “growing area of criminal activity that threatens Canadians’ privacy and security interests.” It added “there is no legislative power specifically designed to compel an individual to provide” law enforcement or public safety agencies access to their electronic device, “the search of which has been judicially authorized.” The CACP said without access, criminal and national security investigations would end unsuccessfully. According to the CACP document, courts in the United Kingdom can order a person to provide “decrypted information and/or encryption keys.” It added that “key production legislation” is in force in South Africa, France and Finland, with Sweden and New Zealand both having produced their own proposals for it. The United States does not have the same laws, but the issue has been subject to much scrutiny following the FBI’s request to Apple Inc. to create an avenue that would give it access to an iPhone owned by a man allegedly involved in an attack in San Bernadino, Calif., in December. The FBI, with the help of a third-party, eventually cracked the device without Apple’s help. In February, Canada’s privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien told a House of Commons committee that, “there may be some differences in terms of U.S. and Canadian legislation, but the debate is not a U.S. debate.” Ann Cavoukian, executive director of the Privacy and Big Data Institute at Ryerson University and former privacy commissioner for Ontario, said in its current form the CACP proposal is “completely unacceptable” because of its broad approach to search and believes it would be in contravention of the Charter’s “unreasonable” search and seizure clause. “Access to your cell… would give you access to such a wide range of information, extending from health care information to financial records… to work-related emails,” she said in a phone interview. Cavoukian added that if it were to pass, it has be to “very narrow,” and even then, she said there should be a “trusted third-party” who would ensure that any information obtained in the search and to be passed to police meets the requirements of the warrant. The debate on more access for law enforcement comes four months after Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp implemented end-to-end encryption, considered one of the strongest forms of security, which Cavoukian said is in high demand. “End-to-end encryption will just grow,” she said. When asked in a phone interview if this would have any implications for wireless and phone companies, Marc Choma, vice president of communications and strategy at the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, said he believes this is strictly between law enforcement and individuals and he doesn’t see this having implications for those companies. He added that wireless companies have to, and do, comply with requests from law enforcement. But Cavoukian said she believes the telecommunications companies will resist this strongly. “The telcos right now have gone to great lengths to protect the customers’ information,” she said. “I think they would push hard against this, as well.” In 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that law enforcement agencies were required to obtain a warrant or court order to get subscriber information from Internet service providers. A year prior to that, Telus Corp. won a case in the Supreme Court defending against a warrant by police in Owen Sound, Ont., that would have required it to release private text messages. However, earlier this month, an Ontario Court of Appeal ruling indicated that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy for text messages picked up on a search of a recipient’s phone. Goodale, for his part, said to media that Canadians are cognizant of both sides of the debate. “They want the privacy of their information; they want the personal security that comes with that, but they also, especially if they’re the victims of the crime, would want the police to be in the position to effectively investigate what happened to them,” he said. The minister made the comments just after addressing a packed conference hall, where he outlined his mandate and the details on the government’s cyber security initiative, a review of which he said was “long overdue.” The review should “trigger a very useful and essential discussion about where Canadians want the intersection to be found between encryption and absolute privacy as values on one side, and legitimate, important investigations to protect the public good and the public interest on the other side,” he said to the crowd, adding “having this consultation and debate is urgent, as recent incidents have indicated.” — With reporting by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca and editing by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca

Password disclosure law up for ‘public discussion’: Goodale

News | August 17, 2016

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Password disclosure law up for ‘public discussion’: Goodale

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