Russ Harvey Consulting - Computer and Internet Services

The Surveillance Economy

Profiting from your private data

Everyone's Collecting | Metadata | Governments | Demand Privacy
Repeal C-51 | Surveillance Reports

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A monitor shows a man holding a pair of binoculars with the Facebook logo on the eye pieces.

Justified by terrorism, surveillance has been exploited by both governments and businesses.

Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organisations…, but it may also be carried out by corporations (either on behalf of governments or at their own initiative).
Wikipedia

Stop the Harvest

Every day, a shadowy network of companies is taking, buying, and selling the most intimate details of our lives.

They spy on our physical and mental health, our shopping lists, our friend networks, and where we go each hour.

In doing so, they undermine our ability to control our digital lives and restrict our free will online and off.

Stop the harvest! Take the first step to controlling your digital life.

 

Tired of being treated like a product, and having your privacy rights ignored by lawmakers? Sign the petition!

We're Becoming a Police State

We've seen a series of laws and rules that greatly increase the power of the government and police to gather information on their own citizens.

It is secretly obtained without the prerequisite for probable cause or the oversight of a warrant that once protected citizens from unlawful search and seizure.

Whether it is cellphone tracking devices, Ring camera footage or licence plate cameras, data is being constantly collected about where we are and who we are with.

Warrantless access to this data “just in case” has become the norm rather than the exception.

Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state.
Bruce Schneier

Current trends show increased surveillance and the corresponding loss of privacy:

An expanding category of software, apps, and devices is normalizing cradle-to-grave surveillance in more and more aspects of everyday life. At EFF we call them “disciplinary technologies.” They typically show up in the areas of life where surveillance is most accepted and where power imbalances are the norm: in our workplaces, our schools, and in our homes.
EFF

Governments allowed corporations unprecedented access to our private data, then demanded access to those same resources based upon the rulings of secret courts.

Our private data is the new currency of business. Increasingly companies collect everything about what we do online, supposedly in exchange for all the free information and products on the Internet.

The press has performed admirably in reporting on privacy violations by the National Security Agency and major internet companies. But news sites often expose users to the same surveillance programs and data-collection companies they criticize.
The New York Times

Do Not Track Ineffective

Some attempts have been made to allow you to opt-out of this collection process.

The “Do Not Track” should have provided a clear indication that you don't want to be tracked, but it was made voluntary, so even with that enabled, you'll see the pop-up notices about the use of cookies now required by the European Union (but not North America) because it is ignored by most companies claiming that there is “no standard.”

The “Do Not Track” law serves as a sterling example of how bad things are. When it was proposed, it was supposed to give users the right to demand that Internet companies not track them. Internet companies fought hard against the law, and when it was passed, they fought to ensure that it didn't have any benefit to users.
Bruce Schneier
Even if you have Do Not Track turned on, that information will be collected and stored and used to create a profile of you that may or may not be accurate. That profile can be used by credit agencies, big corporations, and health insurance companies to make decisions about you that can literally affect your life and livelihood.
ZDNET

You Are the Product

Any time that you don't pay for a product or a service, your private information is the currency. You become the product.

Corporations like Facebook became wealthy by creating profiles on their users to be sold to advertisers using an open Web that they're now trying to lock down.

Facebook makes about $50 per user per month while providing their “free” service.

Microsoft changed their business model from selling operating systems and office suites to one which collects personal information and monetizes features that used to be included free with the purchase of a Windows licence.

Your Personal Privacy at Risk

Your personal privacy is at risk like it has never been before. Too many have bought into the “nothing to hide” mantra.

It's not necessarily that you're doing anything wrong at all, or that you have anything to hide, but we all should have a sphere of our life where we're not on stage or being scrutinized.

 

And if we get rid of our privacy it's going to have a massive impact on our ability to develop as humans.
Jenny Afia

Our information is being handled by an increasingly smaller number of powerful companies where your privacy impedes profitability.

Unfortunately, your privacy isn't a priority for social media companies. After all, they make money by selling ads, and by selling information about their members. Proper privacy can interfere with a social media company's ability to monetize the time you spend on their site.
PC Mag
It feels like every tech giant has been racing to update their privacy policies these days so we wanted to ask. What did we just sign up for? What is this bargain? — Mozilla
Tech companies like Facebook have mastered the art of distorting choice and consent.
EFF

More about this brave new world of one-sided transparency:

Yes, you're being tracked everywhere and even though many claim they don't sell your data, they do indirectly:

Safety of Children a Powerful but Flawed Argument

Children's safety and the prosecution of child-based crimes is a noble action. However, legislation is often flawed and has darker purposes, including outright attacks on encryption and free speech.

While we see this argument used to justify removing rights like the right to privacy or encryption, they are far less aggressive in fighting privacy violations involving children if it profits big business.

Mozilla's IRL podcast, The “Privacy Policy” Policy gives a great example of how a “free” game can collect information to monetize their product, even from kids.

Yet More Access is Demanded

Police and intelligence agencies are quick to point out the use of cell phones and encryption in terrorist attacks. They continue to demand new restrictions including special “back door” access.

Criminals and terrorists use many other services. Do we ban everything?

Criminals have used telephones and mobile phones since they were invented. Drug smugglers use airplanes and boats, radios and satellite phones. Bank robbers have long used cars and motorcycles as getaway vehicles, and horses before then. And while terrorism turns society's very infrastructure against itself, we only harm ourselves by dismantling that infrastructure in response — just as we would if we banned cars because bank robbers used them too.
Bruce Schneier

Back Doors Unsecure

Back doors inevitably are broken and become the tools of criminals. No one wants to share private data and financial information such as credit cards on the Internet without strong encryption (it would be like mailing cash).

It really never comes into play as being a personal issue or a real big factor for you personally until that information is either weaponized, used against you, or it feels personal.
The Grand Bargain

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Everyone is Collecting Information

Everyone is collecting vast amounts of information about you on the Internet.

Governments, businesses, online advertisers, video clips, social media, webmail services…

Everyone.

Some companies exist for the sole purpose of collecting all the data you leave online, and then sell it on to whomever pays. These companies are called data brokers.

 

They follow you around as you go from one website to another and store all the information you leave behind. On their own, each data point says very little about you. But when you combine all that information, it suddenly becomes possible to gain insight into your political beliefs, your religion, gender, sexual preferences, financial status, and even whether you are about to get married or want to get pregnant.

 

And that's exactly what happens: data brokers use the information they collect to build extensive, although often incorrect, profiles.
Mozilla
The practice of compiling and selling individuals' personal information by data brokers for marketing or other purposes raises privacy concerns. These concerns result, in part, from a lack of transparency and openness and the challenges individuals face in trying to exert control over their information.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Websites Blame Ad Blockers

Websites complain if you're using an ad blocker and Google Chrome soon will include technology to inhibit their effectiveness.

For years now, Google has been trying to wind down Manifest V2 in favor of Manifest V3, which is designed to offer better security for Chrome extensions. But the effort has been met with resistance from ad-block providers since Manifest V3 can also restrict access to content filtering on the Chrome browser.

 

The developers of uBlock Origin also created a version of the software that's designed to work with Manifest V3. So the ad blocker won't be dead on Chrome. Called uBlock Origin Lite, the extension has so far received positive reviews. Nevertheless, there's still debate on if the Manifest V3 edition of uBlock Origin will offer the same quality as the original.
LastPass blog

One solution is to abandon Chrome for privacy-oriented browsers such as Firefox and Safari.

Not Just About Ads

The issue isn't just about the advertising (although that can interfere with your enjoyment of content such as videos). It's a privacy issue.

Traditional website advertising was embedded in the page for everyone to see. Ad blockers should have no effect of those types of ads.

What Google, Facebook and online advertisers don't tell you is that sites now upload your personal information to dozens of potential advertisers, few of whom have any privacy policy and some that have no intention of providing an ad (they're just collection your data).

Since Google, Facebook and Amazon collect approximately 90% of the world-wide online ad revenue, that leaves at most 10% for everyone else.

How much do you think that any other single website can ever hope to collect by exposing your personal information to potential advertisers?

Personalized Ad Compromise Personal Privacy

The issue is the collection and uploading of that personal data about the site visitor (determined by tracking their browser history, using cookies, Google Analytics and a host of other methods) which is then uploaded to potential buyers of an ad for a specific viewer.

Legitimate online businesses track users online but don't sell individual records. Instead they'll label them as likely fitting particular groups, such as fans of a football team or new parents, based on their browsing history.

 

In principle at least, tech firms try to balance the categorization so that groups are narrow enough to allow effective ad targeting, but broad enough that identifying any individual is difficult.

 

However, the ICCL investigation found that advertisers have more categories, covering more specific characteristics, than widely assumed. That means the available information about any individual is much greater, making it easier to cross-reference with other details to identify them.

 

Some of the categories in ad data revealed by the ICCL were highly personal, including information about potentially embarrassing health conditions. Other categories were potentially a major security risk not just for the individuals but for companies.
Infopackets

Many of these “advertisers” have no intention of purchasing advertising and this data is being collected and sold for purposes other than advertising, including to foreign governments.

Google, Facebook and Amazon collect approximately 90% of the world-wide online ad revenue leaving at most 10% for everyone else. How much do you think that any other single website can ever hope to collect by exposing your personal information to potential advertisers?

Your Personal Data Valuable

Your personal data has become the currency of the Internet and is worth $130 billion per year!

Digital advertisers are making approximately $250 annually — roughly twice the cost of a Netflix subscription — off you and your browsing data.
Jeremy Tillman
Right now, our data is worth a lot of coin to a lot of companies. But privacy, it's priceless. It's a necessary part of a healthy functioning society.
Manoush Zomorodi
“Privacy is often framed as a matter of personal responsibility, but a huge portion of the data in circulation isn't shared willingly — it's collected surreptitiously and with impunity.

 

Most third-party data collection in the US is unregulated,” said Cyphers. “The first step in fixing the problem is to shine a light…on the invasive third-party tracking that, online and offline, has lurked for too long in the shadows.” — EFF

US ISPs Wanted in on the Action

No wonder the US ISPs were pressuring the government to allow them to cull user data like Facebook and Google do. However, their premise is flawed.

President Trump signed the bill allowing ISPs to collect and sell their client's surfing data on April 3, 2017.

Not only have [US lawmakers] voted to repeal a rule that protects your privacy, they are also trying to make it illegal for the Federal Communications Commission to enact other rules to protect your privacy online.
Bruce Schneier

Unlike Facebook and Google, ISPs charge for their services. But they also have complete access to all of your online activities. Imagine if your phone company recorded all your calls for profit?

I wonder how many of these ISPs would be so keen on the idea if they had to provide unlimited Internet access to their subscribers without billing them monthly?

ISPs Can Record Everything You Do Online

ISPs see everything you do online (not just when you're logged into Facebook or another service).

This allows them to create a much more accurate profile that will be worth much more than Facebook's profile of you (which is so detailed that advertisers can focus their message to a user base more precisely than virtually any other advertising medium).

This isn't just your browsing history or cookies. It's geolocation data, financial info, passwords, health info, even your Social Security Number. Anything you do, any data you enter, any online video you watch, any email you write. Your ISP could store it all and sell it for their own profit if Congress throws out the FCC rulings.
SaveBroadbandPrivacy.org

Remember, this is much more than what you're typing into your browser.

More and more our applications have moved from our computer to become Software as a Service (SaaS) — software running on the Internet. Even our operating systems (e.g., Windows 10) are moving that direction.

The “cloud” is just somebody else's computer.

If this trend is allowed to continue, it will give individuals even less control (ownership) of our own data.

Bill C-11

The Canadian government's Bill C-11 (Online Streaming Act) moves the 1990s cable structure onto the Internet.

CanCon rules, upon which this bill is based, are convoluted, esoteric and make no sense in an online streaming world where what you choose to watch doesn't prevent anyone else from watching what they want.

Bill C-18

Bill C-18 (The Online News Act) destroyed access to Canadian news on social media because it essentially forces these companies to pay for links — something that breaks how the Internet functions.

Rather than funding the news, this bill has permanently compromised the independence and diversity of Canadian news. Most mainstream media has become essentially a government media corporation, just like in China or Russia.

Facebook Tracking

You're vulnerable to Facebook tracking when

Using common factors, Facebook will attempt to link up the anonymous account with an actual account or combine multiple anonymous accounts into one profile.

Facebook wants Apple to change its business model so Facebook doesn't have to. Think about that.

 

It's like Ford Motor asking Tesla to build gas-powered cars so it can compete. Or Dell asking Apple to go back to Intel so their notebooks can compete.
ZDNET

Google Tracking

You're providing data to Google when you use their search facilities directly (instead of an intermediary like StartPage.com) or use a Google product like Gmail, Chrome, YouTube, Google Maps, etc. or when you visit the 86% of sites that use Google Analytics.

You're particularly exposed when you're logged in to your Google account while using Chrome, YouTube or Google Search.

Tracking Mobile Device Users

The choices for mobile users is even more distinct based upon the mobile operating system:

In my opinion, it is unfortunate that a very capable company like Google (Alphabet) discontinued their “do no evil” original motto (since replaced with “do the right thing”).

Big Corporations Hijacked the Internet

The Internet was made for everyone but is being hijacked by big corporations that are turning people into products without their knowledge or consent.
The Hidden Business of the Internet
The data market is massive, how big? Well the going estimate puts it at over 130 billion dollars now and maybe as much as 200 billion in the next three years. Those in the business of buying and selling data, we call them data brokers.
Veronica Belmont

And it is probably going to get worse. Like sharks smelling blood, corporations are after any data they can cull. They keep it insecurely (remember, it cost them little to obtain) just in case it comes in useful later.

Trade deals like TPP, TISA and TTIP have all been open to input from industry but closed to input from both non-profit groups that look out for the public interest as well as many of our elected government representatives.

It appeared that we'd defeated the TPP then the US negotiation team began making the same demands within NAFTA. One example: they are seeking to invalidate Canadian laws protecting privacy and copyright so that US cloud providers face no restriction on doing business here.

Currently, policies in British Columbia and Nova Scotia require public-sector information — data from universities, hospitals, and government institutions — to be stored in Canada with the intent to prevent public information from being accessed elsewhere. However, that protection no longer applies if that data is stored in the US, and its own protections don't extend to non-citizens.
MotherBoard

Canada has bowed to US pressure to approve the new NAFTA agreement which contains many of the worst aspects of the TPP. Expect to pay more for US services and to have fewer protections.

Big Data: Tracking Your Every Move

Big Data is the current mantra of organizations. How to obtain it, store it, process it.

Big data has been promoted as saving you time, personalizing your experience and a number of other positive concepts.

The Dark Side

However, big data has its dark side: the development, buying and selling of profiles (data about individuals).

The modern ad industry is about the buying and selling of individuals, says Jeff Chester, executive director at the Center for Digital Democracy. All the investments is aggressively pushing toward much more granular personalized targeting.The Verge

“Personalized” Experiences

“Personalized” experiences is a euphemism for profiling.

Its purpose is to make advertisers more effective in targeting you in their advertising; more likely that an ad will appeal to you.

Our unprecedented ability to collect and store data is revolutionizing the business world and giving companies predictive insight that they have never dreamed of before.

 

Motor companies can now anticipate breakdowns, credit card companies can apply personally tailored rates for their clients, and mega-retailers like Costco and Wal-Mart can track sales with accuracy that almost seems psychic.
Moran Shimony

Interestingly enough, targeted ads only provide a 4% improvement over contextual ads according to a 2019 study:

We find that when a user's cookie is available publisher's revenue increases by only about 4%. This corresponds to an average increase of $0.00008 per advertisement.
Veronica Marotta, Vibhanshu Abhishek, and Alessandro Acquisti

The concept of “personally tailored rates” may sound appealing until you realize that means that you'll pay more if you live in the wrong neighbourhood or view the wrong sites (or your friends do).

There is only one word that can be used to describe this practice: sleazy.

Web Tracking

If you're using privacy software like Ghostery on your web browser, you've probably noticed that most sites now use invisible web beacons, analytics services, page widgets and other third-party page elements that are secretly tracking your every move.

[W]eb tracking has become so pervasive that approximately ten percent of websites send the data they've collected to ten or more different companies, and 15 percent of all page loads on the internet are monitored by ten or more trackers.
Jeremy Tillman

These sleazy practices are very profitable but come at the expense of your privacy. Corporations would sue you if you were to return the favour (they'd call it hacking).

Videos and Comments as Marketing Tools

Videos and comments at the bottom of an article or post on many sites are tracked and personal information.

These are marketing tools.

If you use ad blockers and other privacy software, you quickly learn that if you block tracking elements, you can no longer view embedded videos nor see the comments left by other site visitors.

Creepy Recording of Your Surfing

Many of today's largest websites are not only storing generic analytics data, but individualized recordings of visits to their site, (including keystrokes, mouse movements, clicks and the pages visited). Even keystrokes that aren't submitted (including your typed passwords) are collected.

They claim that they are only collecting anonymous meta data, but are doing everything they can to identify users.

"Session replay scripts" can be used to log (and then playback) everything you typed or clicked on a website.
Motherboard

The information shared on some sites is much more personal and should be protected. It isn't.

Dating sites collect sensitive personal information like drug usage habits and sexual preferences. They also have dozens of trackers that can collect profile information, as well as information on where a user clicks or looks.
Axios

Why Tracking is a Privacy Issue

While these sites claim the purpose is to improve their website, much more information is obtained which allows sites to create a precise profile about you.

Collection of page content by third-party replay scripts may cause sensitive information such as medical conditions, credit card details and other personal information displayed on a page to leak to the third-party as part of the recording. This may expose users to identity theft, online scams, and other unwanted behavior. The same is true for the collection of user inputs during checkout and registration processes.
Freedom to Tinker

This data has tremendous economic value and may be shared without your permission (or be revealed in a data breach) and this could have significant repercussions for your privacy in the future.

A National Security Issue

It also may affect the security of nations like the United States and Canada if medical data reveals either a history of mental illness or other embarrassing conditions for persons in positions of power.

According to [Karen] Kornbluh, US businesses gathering data and using tracking software on individuals isn't just a threat to people's privacy. She says it's a threat to US security.

 

Her argument is that there's a double risk with such large scale gathering. Firstly, when businesses collect and sell data, there's no guarantee it won't be bought or passed on to foreign governments.

 

Secondly, there's a risk that businesses which store data won't adequately secure it, leading to it being stolen in a cyber security breach. Often the most sophisticated attacks come from hackers which have the financial backing and resources of a foreign government.
John Lister

Recorded Phone Calls

The same sort of information gathering occurs on phone calls. We're told this is for training purposes.

I can understand the security requirements, but I ran into a situation where the recording would have benefited me.

I agreed to use the services of a large bank to hold funds pending the purchase of a home with an unknown timeline. The bank agreed to an adjusted interest rate if I cashed in early.

When I needed to access the money to close on the purchase of my house, the vendor stated that there would be three penalties that not only took away all of the interest, but also a significant chunk of the original principle.

The call between my advisor and the head office was recorded like any other, but the corporation felt it was too difficult to dig up the call. I agreed to a counter offer that was less than it should have been, but at least provide the principle and some interest.

I wonder if it would have been too difficult to obtain the recording if it had benefited the company.

PayPal Shares Your Data

The 600+ companies PayPal shares your data withview the graphic.

While much of this may have to do with ensuring your identity, that is a lot of sharing.

More About Big Data

There's more about Big Data on these pages:

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“We're Only Collecting Metadata”

Many organizations indicate that they are “only collecting metadata” yet are very vague about what they do with our data and who they share it with.

[M]etadata is characterized as data used to describe other data. In the aftermath of the Snowden revelations, however, the courts struggled to characterize metadata in light of precedent.

 

As a result, an assessment of whether bulk collection of telephony metadata violates a reasonable expectation of privacy seems to have been rooted in three constitutionally relevant dichotomies, namely content vs. non-content data, private records vs. business records held by third parties, and hard-to-obtain information vs. information “in plain view.”
Kift & Nissenbaum

Significant is our inability to determine how those collecting our information will:

aggregate, store, combine and analyze that data, and the extent to which we, the data subjects, assume the risk of metadata being shared beyond the purpose for which it was provided.
— Kift & Nissenbaum (source no longer available)

The number and size of data breaches demonstrates how little regard these organizations have for the consequences of their failure to protect our data.

The implication is that we allowed them this information so they are no longer responsible.

Why Metadata Matters

Research has shown that using only call metadata, the government can determine what your religion is, if you purchased a gun or got an abortion, and other incredibly private details of your life.

 

Former director of the NSA and CIA, Michael Hayden, recently admitted: We kill people based on metadata.

 

And former NSA General Counsel Stu Baker said: Metadata absolutely tells you everything about somebody's life. If you have enough metadata, you don't really need content.
Electronic Frontier Foundation (emphasis mine)

These three (rather obvious) examples demonstrate how much metadata reveals about us:

  1. They know you rang a phone sex service at 2:24 a.m. and spoke for 18 minutes. But they don't know what you talked about.
  2. They know you called the suicide prevention hotline from the Golden Gate Bridge. But the topic of the call remains a secret.
  3. They know you spoke with an HIV testing service, then your doctor, then your health insurance company in the same hour. But they don't know what was discussed.
Kurt Opsahl at CCC on December 30, 2013

Why metadata matters further expands this concept and helps you to better understand what metadata is and how it affects us.

Metadata Can Be “De-anonymized”

We're continually assured that all data is anonymized before sharing, but that process can be reversed by using associated data to re-identify the person associated with that “anonymized” data.

Today, almost everything about our lives is digitally recorded and stored somewhere. Each credit card purchase, personal medical diagnosis, and preference about music and books is recorded and then used to predict what we like and dislike, and ultimately, who we are.

 

Sometimes companies say our personal data is “anonymized,” implying a one-way ratchet where it can never be dis-aggregated and re-identified. But this is not possible — anonymous data rarely stays this way.

 

However, in practice, any attempt at de-identification requires removal not only of your identifiable information, but also of information that can identify you when considered in combination with other information known about you. Here's an example:
  • First, think about the number of people that share your specific ZIP or postal code.
  • Next, think about how many of those people also share your birthday.
  • Now, think about how many people share your exact birthday, ZIP code, and gender.
According to one landmark study, these three characteristics are enough to uniquely identify 87% of the U.S. population. A different study showed that 63% of the U.S. population can be uniquely identified from these three facts.
EFF

A more intensive look at telephone metadata reveals that your privacy could be compromised by linking the timing of anonymous data to data that directly identifies you via credit card, hotel stays and more.

While there might be a lot of people who are in their thirties, male, and living in New York City, far fewer of them were also born on 5 January, are driving a red sports car, and live with two kids (both girls) and one dog.
Dr. Luc Rocher
One investigation of "anonymized" user credit card data by MIT found that users could be correctly "de-anonymized" 90 percent of the time using just four relatively vague points of information.

 

Another study looking at vehicle data found that 15 minutes' worth of data from just brake pedal use could lead them to choose the right driver, out of 15 options, 90% of the time.
TechDirt

All this can be used to build a profile of you where preliminary judgement calls are then processed as “facts” by other parties. Metadata IS surveillance.

Even something like Alfred Kinsey's sex research data from the 1930s and 1940s isn't safe. Kinsey took great pains to preserve the anonymity of his subjects, but in 2013, researcher Raquel Hill was able to identify 97% of them.
Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Capture Your Data and Control Your World by Bruce Schneier

Much more data is collected today. We can no longer blindly provide access to all our personal data assuming it is truly anonymous.

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Governments Ignore Privacy

[K]now that every border that you cross, every purchase you make, every call you dial, every cellphone tower you pass, friend you keep, site you visit, and subject line you type, is in the hands of a system whose reach is unlimited but whose safeguards are not.
CITIZENFOUR documentary

Everything We Know About NSA Spying is an excellent YouTube video about NSA spying. It shows just how extensive the reach of this program is and how easy it is to become a target.

In the “new propaganda era” we are entering, where the frontier between information, communication and propaganda becomes blurry, the world needs independent journalists, who engage in the pursuit of the truth, who respect standards of ethics, and whose mission is to give citizens of this world tools to understand what surrounds them. That is to say, in a word, free journalists.
Defence Handbook For Journalists and Bloggers

Governments Watching Personal Activities

Governments are collecting more about you and your Internet activities.

Never in history has a surveillance state and a representative form of government existed side by side. A free society and a surveillance society cannot be reconciled. Biometrics is the linchpin to a surveillance society.
Constitutional Alliance
Never give a government a power you would not want a despot to have.
— John Gilmore

Canadian Government Double Standard

The Canadian government will not allow its data to be stored on servers outside Canada. However, the government is much less concerned about your privacy.

They continue to share data about their own citizens with the U.S. and other Five Eyes partners — even unconfirmed data that has cost innocent individuals their freedom.

Overseas Privacy Threatened

Microsoft successfully fought a December 2013 federal search warrant demanding that the company release emails stored in Ireland. Governments seeking access to data stored on overseas servers should concern everyone. The U.S. is not the only country doing this.

The revelations of NSA searches on U.S. servers has cost American tech companies, forcing them to build servers overseas rather than hosting them all in the United States. This case clearly had implications for these companies being abandoned if foreign customers felt their privacy was threatened even with servers hosted in their own country.

You can find out more about governments collection of personal information at:

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Demand Privacy

Justin Trudeau and the government of Canada are absolutely failing us when it comes to protecting our privacy.

 

Sensitive information about us — like data related to our health, finances, and location — is being bought, sold, stolen, lost, and used against us, without any significant repercussions.
OpenMedia

Sign the petition: #DemandPrivacy!.

Put Privacy Before Profit

Privacy is a basic human right.

Our government boasted about imposing some of the highest fines for privacy violations in the world.

 

Now we know these fines won't apply to many of Canada's most high profile and egregious privacy incidents over the last few years.
OpenMedia

Repeal Bill C-51: The Anti-Terrorism Act, 2015

Trudeau promised to amend the controversial and Draconian anti-terrorist Bill C-51.

A lot of what classifies as terrorism in the political context — individuals that the news calls terrorist — are really common criminals. But they do not constitute the kind of super criminal threat that is represented by our terrorism legislation.
Edward Snowden

Balancing Privacy and Security

The law is vague and undefined, making it possible to collect and trade information between agencies without either proper oversight or just cause.

[W]e have seen too many cases of inappropriate and sometimes illegal conduct by state officials that have impacted on the rights of ordinary citizens not suspected of criminal or terrorist activities.
Privacy Commissioner

Online Safety Threatened

Bill C-51 makes it easier for police to access information and to defeat encryption.

It allows for the sharing of entire databases with CSIS and the RCMP without cause:

The bar is so low that effectively “having a look around just in case” is sufficient justification for sharing massive amounts of information under the Act.
BCCLA

Not “Going Dark”

Law enforcement agencies are clamoring for even easier access to meta-data.

Far from “going dark,” the amount of data available to policing agencies in Canada and abroad is at historic heights, making this truly the golden age of investigative surveillance.
The Star

No Oversight

We are fast approaching the very definition of a police state where everything about you is known by the police.

Imagine how you would feel if the government installed cameras in your home that recorded everything you did, then gave police the power to review the footage without a warrant, whenever they want.

 

If that sounds to you like a gross violation of your privacy, you should probably be aware that the federal Liberals are contemplating pretty much exactly that for the digital world.
Huffington Post

Clearview AI Dangerous

The RCMP first denied using Clearview AI's facial recognition technology then lied about what they were using it for.

The RCMP were effectively putting millions of innocent Canadians into a 24/7 police lineup.

[O]nly 6% of the hundreds of Clearview AI searches done by the RCMP were to identify victims, and a staggering 85% of searches could not be accounted for at all.
Privacy Commissioner

CSIS a de facto Secret Police

We're at a tipping point where we need to decide whether to continue evolving into a surveillance society, or whether to rein in the government's spying apparatus before more lives are ruined by information disclosures.
— OpenMedia
While a democracy can incorporate the need for an intelligence agency to operate with considerable secrecy, there is no place in a democracy for a secret police. Full stop.
BCCLA

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Surveillance Reports

Reports about privacy and surveillance:

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Updated: September 28, 2024