RCMP admit using ‘identifier technology’ to track cellphones
Some privacy advocates want practice scrapped, saying it gathers info on thousands of innocent Canadians
The RCMP used controversial spy technology to track cellphone data in19 criminal investigations last year — the first official public acknowledgement that the force uses surreptitious devices to collect Canadians’ cellular details.
In a rare briefing with reporters from the Toronto Star, CBC and the Globe and Mail Wednesday morning, RCMP Chief Superintendent Jeff Adam said his force owns 10 so-called “mobile device identifier” (MDI) devices with the ability to gather high-level data about the phone’s location — but not private communications.
“We will confirm officially that the RCMP possesses and uses mobile identifier technology in order to identify and locate a suspect in a criminal investigation,” he said. “This capability can be used to further criminal investigations relating to national security, serious organized crime and other serious Criminal Code offences that impact the safety and security of Canadians.”
Adam called the technology a “very important investigative tool for us.”
Adam said the devices identify a suspect’s cellphone by gathering “very limited” signalling information in a given vicinity and collecting unique identification information from the phone — called International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) and International Mobile Equipment Identity numbers (IMEI).
“What the RCMP technology does not do is collect private communications,” Adam said.
That includes voice and audio communications, email messages, text messages, contact lists, images, encryption keys or basic subscriber information, he said.
While MDI technology does allow for the collection of personal communications, the RCMP uses equipment that — by policy — does not capture private communications, said Adam. He would not identify the specific model of MDI device the RCMP uses.
But Brenda McPhail, director of privacy, technology and surveillance at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said even metadata collection is an invasion of privacy.
“Metadata includes location information. That is intimately personal. The fact that they only collect metadata doesn’t let them off the hook,” she said.
The same MDI technology used to target a suspect will also gather up the cellular data of many other Canadians, Adam confirmed.
“All of that information is evidence,” he said. “The judge is informed of what we got and where we’re going to keep it . . . It will not be accessed, other than the target information, again.”
Cellphone data collected with the MDI devices is sealed, treated as an exhibit and retained for court purposes and can be later destroyed “in accordance to records management principles,” Adam said.
But that assurance isn’t good enough for some privacy experts.
Ontario’s former privacy commissioner, Ann Cavoukian, said the “drag net” nature of the technology puts the privacy of potentially tens of thousands of innocent, law-abiding people at risk.
“Surely that data should be deleted. It certainly shouldn’t be retained, I totally reject that,” Cavoukian said. “The data that is secured, that is not needed, why would that data be retained at all?”
Now the director of the Privacy and Big Data Institute at Ryerson University, Cavoukian said the government should be destroying data that’s not related to investigations as soon as it’s identified and called for much more stringent oversight to ensure that the technology isn’t abused.
“Who’s auditing this? You need in- dependent eyes on this, someone completely unrelated to law enforcement to do an exhaustive audit and oversight. There’s no independent oversight over this,” she said.
Joseph Hickey, the executive director of the Ontario Civil Liberties Association, wants to see the technology done away with altogether. “It’s unacceptable,” Hickey said. “It’s too broad. It’s completely unpredictable who will be caught up in it. We should draw the line at not using this kind of technology. It’s hard to imagine how that could be justified in a free and democratic society,” Hickey said.
Adam said the technology is used, “in full compliance with Canadian law which includes the charter of rights, the Criminal Code of Canada and proper judicial processes.”
In cases where the RCMP believes a suspect is using a cellphone to conduct criminal activity, they can deploy the tool for a few moments at a time to collect cellular device information, said Adam.
Use of the MDI technology can cause interference with cellular signals in the immediate area, including 911 calls, he said.
“The RCMP makes every effort to . . . cause the least disruption to service and public safety,” said Adam.
There are 24 RCMP officers certified to use the MDI devices across the country. Judicial authorization is required before using the devices except in “extremely urgent cases,” Adam said, including preventing death or imminent harm. In those cases, the RCMP can use this technology and then get a judge’s authorization after the fact, he said.
One of the 19 criminal investigations that involved use of the tools last year involved an “exigent circumstance such as a kidnapping,” Adam said.
In 2015, RCMP officers used the devices in 24 criminal investigations, he said.
The technology could be deployed numerous times during each of those investigations, Adam confirmed.
“It is one of the only ways to identify a cellphone used by a subject which then can lead to further judicial authorizations to get the subscriber information and then further authorizations to conduct further investigation in the criminal investigation,” Adam said.
Some other Canadian police forces have the devices as well, he said, without identifying them.
The use of the spy technology by the RCMP has long been met with silence from the force which has cited privacy around its investigation techniques.
That silence was broken following a CBC-Radio Canada story this week that reported the presence of spy technology being used in the area around Parliament Hill. Using a device that detects the spy equipment, journalists documented readings in December and January in downtown Ottawa, the CBC reported.
The identity of those using the technology is not known. On Tuesday, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale announced an investigation by the RCMP and CSIS.