More Questions than Answers, Should we be Worried?

“Lawful Access” legislation is a potential new player regarding Canada’s privacy internet laws. In essence, this new legislation deals with recent technologies that have emerged as a result of the internet. In a broad overview this legislation is designed to implement laws regarding privacy rights that are not covered by current US internet laws. However, these potential new legislations might go beyond simple protection, by enforcing rules that violate our current civil liberties, the question that needs to be asked is, what is the cost for protection, is it worth surrendering all of our other privacy rights, a form of Draconian law.

The paragraph below was taken from the Government of Canada Department of Justice website http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cons/la-al/sum-res/faq.html

“Communications technology keeps changing. How can the law keep pace?”

“Under the current laws, not all telecommunications service providers are required to design intercept capabilities into their networks. When a new technology or communication service is introduced, law enforcement and national security agencies often have to research and develop new methods to gain lawful access to those networks. The lack of a technical solution, or a delay in the ability to use it, hampers investigations and the prevention of serious crimes or threats to national security.”

Should we be worried about big brother or something else completely?

Who watches the watchers, is there a breaking point between the safety of the citizen and their privacy. This is a question that has been posed by many people throughout history. However, what separates this millennium from the past is that our information is now online. We cannot discount or simply unplug our social profiles from the internet; they are always there, available to the highest bidder or those with the most power.

The internet is merging our online content with our offline world, for example, police officers using TALEN in Alberta, a profiling database for ordinary citizens, for example, nice person or bad person, a profile of you before they even meet you, is this right? The behaviour being exhibited by current police agencies regarding online usage by the citizenry is mimicking the behaviour of Spiderman, and his “spidey sense,” meaning acting on a hunch, or a world full of little brothers.

How can we protect our rights, as per our guest lecturer, Christopher Parsons, PhD candidate, at the University of Victoria, he discussed in his presentation that technological resistance is not the answer. Instead the real solution lies in our political process, make a compliant, follow through, know your rights and stand-up for them.