National Post (National Edition)
Interception of Canadians’ data soars
INCREASES 26-FOLD
OTTAWA • Interception of Canadians’ private communications by the federal electronic spy agency increased 26-fold last year, for reasons authorities won’t fully explain.
And despite commitments between Canada and its intelligence-sharing allies to respect the privacy of each nation’s citizens, the volume of information on Canadians collected by allied intelligence agencies and informally shared with Canada’s spies has grown to the point that it now requires a formal mechanism to cope with all the data.
At least one intelligence expert is concerned the change sidesteps the spirit of Canadian privacy laws.
Details are contained in the latest annual report by the independent, external oversight organization that reviews activities of the Canadian Security Establishment (CSE), Ottawa’s supersecret foreign signals intelligence agency. Quietly tabled in Parliament July 20, the report concludes CSE’s 2015-16 activities were lawful.
But the watchdog Office of the Commissioner of the Communications Security Establishment notes CSE intercepted 342 private communications in 2014-15, compared with just 13 for the previous year.
By law, CSE can only target communications of foreign entities outside Canada. If one end of that communication is in Canada, making it a “private communication,” it requires a written authorization from the minister of national defence, responsible for the CSE, and only if it is essential for “international affairs, defence or security.”
There also must be “satisfactory measures” to protect the privacy of any Canadian citizens, including permanent residents and corporations, inadvertently caught up in the intercept. Otherwise, the CSE is not allowed to target Canadians at home or abroad.
Commissioner Je a n - Pierre Plouffe, a retired Quebec superior court judge, reports he is satisfied all the intercepts of Canadians’ communications last year were unintentional, essential to international affairs, defence or security, backed by ministerial authorizations and legal.
But Plouffe’s explanation for the 26-fold jump is not so straightforward: “This was a consequence of the technical characteristics of a particular communications technology and of the manner in which private communications are counted,” he writes.
Asked to clarify, his office Wednesday declined, saying it is bound by the Security of Information Act and, “to say more could reveal CSE operational capabilities.”
CSE, too, declined to elaborate. “To protect our capabilities and ensure that they remain effective, CSE cannot provide any additional information,” agency spokesman Ryan Foreman said in a statement.
Bill Robinson, a respected and unofficial CSE watchdog who hosts the Lux Ex Umbra blog site, said: “CSE has tremendous control over what the commissioner can in fact say because of its classification/declassification power. They can reduce it to total gibberish.”
Robinson speculates CSE may have targeted social media conversations between individuals and counted each separate message in the string as a private communication. A small number of online conversations could be responsible for the rather large total.
More concerning, he said, is the increasing practice of U.S., British, Australian and New Zealand security intelligence agencies that, along with Canada, make up the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, giving information collected on Canadians to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the country’s domestic security intelligence guardians.
Plouffe’s report says prior to February 2015, the process for such allied reporting to CSIS was “manual” and did not involve CSE. But, “to help address the evolving terrorist threat and the increase in the number of foreign fighters, CSIS required a more timely mechanism to securely exchange information.
“To this end, CSIS requested CSE assistance … to establish a mechanism for CSIS to receive and handle these reports via CSE’s established channels.”
Robinson believes the change is evidence of just how systematic the clandestine collection of Canadians’ information by the allies has become.
Authorities used to claim “that ‘we don’t really do that.’ And then it was, ‘Yeah, but it’s in exceptional cases’, and then it became, ‘Well, we’re doing this for terrorism’ (and certain general crimes), so it’s pretty much going to be all the time,” said Robinson.
“There’s always been this concern about how much do our careful privacy laws get sidestepped by having allies do this stuff instead, and the answer has always been, ‘ We don’t really do that, we have these agreements’ and so on.
“We’re seeing how that gets chipped away.”
U.S., BRITISH INTELLIGENCE PASS DATA ON CANADIANS TO CSIS.