(Ottawa) A parliamentary committee will examine the use of spyware by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police starting Monday. An issue that has alarmed many organizations dedicated to the protection of privacy and civil liberties in the country.
Posted at 9:07 p.m.
The House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics was convened for a summer working session after the RCMP admitted to the use of means to secretly obtain data from a cell phone or a computer.
In response to a written question tabled in the Commons last June, the RCMP defended itself by saying that it had obtained warrants during ten investigations to use these tools to obtain text messages and emails or to put running away from cameras and microphones.
“We’re talking about the most intrusive things out there,” said privacy and technology lawyer David Fraser.
“It’s like giving permission to the police to put on an invisible man’s suit and sit on your couch or bedside table,” he said.
For this reason, M.e Fraser considers it essential that a high level of surveillance be associated with these police requests for warrants.
“I believe that an important part of the discussion to have would be to ensure that any technique as intrusive as these is subject to the highest standards of reasonable cause and that the police are forced to convince the judge that all other available investigative techniques have failed,” the lawyer pleaded.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has called for a discussion on the kinds of safeguards and legal frameworks needed on the use of these tools it deems “dangerous” against Canadians.
Alternatively, M.e Fraser suggests that the committee examine the processes used by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) when it needs to obtain warrants for its investigations.
“The (CSIS officials) go to a bunker in Ottawa and participate in a sort of secret tribunal,” he explained. They are judges appointed by the Federal Court who, ex parte — that is, without an opposing party — consider warrant applications which can be incredibly intrusive according to the criteria of the CSIS act. »
Police affairs expert and professor at Queen’s University, Christian Leuprecht argues that technological developments are moving too fast for the legal framework that governs them. He adds that politicians are too often reluctant to step in to adjust regulations to keep pace.
“It’s the kind of issue that requires politicians to sit down and say, ‘OK, we have this new technology, here’s how we decided to let you use it,'” observes the academic.
Mr. Leuprecht agrees that there must be a high level of oversight behind the use of technological tools by the police, particularly given the significant power vested in the RCMP to arrest and detain individuals.
“Communications Security Establishment is a high-tech agency familiar with how data and technology are used,” notes Professor Luprecht. On the other hand, one might think that the RCMP, for whom this is not their daily bread, represents a greater risk of making the wrong decision and drawing the wrong conclusion. »
The House of Commons committee will have the opportunity to determine whether the current rules are sufficient to protect the privacy of Canadians. It could also decide to require the RCMP to file annual reports in order to promote greater transparency.
In general, the use of surveillance tools by the police is kept secret, notes Me Fraser. The latter would like to see the establishment of a process where all new technology is subjected to an independent analysis before its use.
“I’m not at all comfortable when I imagine the process currently used by law enforcement in Canada when it comes time to determine if the use of a new technological tool is appropriate”, asserts the specialized lawyer.
Last June, the director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s privacy, technology and surveillance program, Brenda McPhail, launched a barrage of questions about how technology was used and whether the Privacy Commissioner had never been consulted prior to his deployment.
“What tools are used and who provides them?” she wrote. Is it one of the many spyware vendors known to provide such tools to authoritarian regimes who use them to target human rights defenders and journalists? »
For mee Fraser, these are also important elements for the committee to dig into.
“If the police can remotely break into anyone’s smartphone, that means there’s a loophole in that smartphone that bad people could also exploit,” he notes.
The “ethical thing to do” in such a case, according to Ms.e Fraser, would report these flaws to the phone manufacturers. However, he believes that neither the police nor the intelligence agencies will report these flaws unless they are forced to do so.
Among the witnesses who will appear before the committee are Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, current and former Privacy Commissioners of Canada and RCMP officers who supervised the use of this software spies.