The border bill proposed by the Liberal Government would empower the police and the country’s espionage agency to find information from a wide range of service providers, including medical professionals, banks and car rental companies, without a court order, government officials spent on Thursday.
In defense of the fiercely criticized bill, federal officials celebrated information with journalists where they argued that the changes are necessary to stay in the panorama of the changing crime. They talked to journalists about the “legal access” parties of the bill under the agreement that are not directly quoted.
The Strong Borders Law, also known as bill C-2, was introduced earlier this month and since then has received a reaction wave of civil, academic freedoms groups and some opposition parliamentarians who argue that it creates new surveillance powers that violate personal privacy and the letter of rights and freedoms.
A Thursday’s call official said they celebrated the informative session to further explain the government’s justification to advance in the holders of the holders.
If approved, C-2 would force the service providers to provide basic information to the Police and to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSI) without judicial firmation. It would also create a new order that forces the production of more detailed subscribers information with judicial authorization during a criminal investigation.
Depending on the case, this production order would require third parties to deliver names, addresses, telephone numbers and what services they were looking for.
The officials provided a hypothetical example: CSIS receives an advice that an individual associated with a Canadian telephone number may be planning a terrorist attack. To investigate, CSIS must first confirm which telephone company is responsible for the phone number before you can find a production order for more details, such as the associated name and address.
The critic says that he is ‘mature for abuse’
However, the bill also allows investigators to take information and data (including subscriber information) without a court order in urgent and sensitive circumstances to time
Critics argue that the bill would violate personal privacy and violate the letter of rights and freedoms.
Tim McSorley, national coordinator of the International Group for Civil Libertads Monitoring, said that the way in which the bill is “mature for abuse.”
“Without a court order, the police and the espionage agencies could demand information about our online activities depending on the low threshold of reasonable suspicion,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The C-2 bill would undermine more than a decade of jurisprudence related to Canadian privacy to allow a massive expansion of domestic surveillance.”
An official reporter said that while Internet service providers will probably receive most applications, they confirmed that the definition of public service providers is sweeping.
That could include a car rental company, hotel or a financial institution. Medical professionals, including hospitals, doctors and psychiatrist offices, could also comply with that definition, they said.
The official emphasized that the police must believe that there are reasons to suspect that the information in question will help in a criminal investigation, and said that there is a mechanism in the bill that allows service providers to request a judicial review if they do not feel comfortable delivering information.
But there are also legal consequences for those who do not comply.
Civil freedom groups are concerned that the bill C-2 proposed by the federal government, the strong border law, provides the agencies of application of the law that sweep new powers, as facilitating that the police seek in their activities and data on the Internet without their knowledge or a court order.
The bill supports the Canadian police chiefs who argue that demands without order would guarantee the “minimum information” but could make a difference at the beginning of an investigation. Child protection defenders have also pressed changes to force Internet suppliers to cooperate with the application of the law.
Richard Fadden, former director of CSIS, said that a telephone guide once allowed the police to “do more or less the same” than what has been sought in this bill, although critics argue that new requests without a court order would provide many more data.
Since he presented the bill, the federal government has argued that it is intended to maintain safe borders, take energetic measures against organized crime and transnational money laundering and stop the flow of mortal fentanyl across the border.
Canada has faced the pressure of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, to reinforce border security. Sometimes, its administration has justified its commercial war by pointing out the flow to the south of irregular migrants and the fentanyl.
