Canadian federal agencies send thousands of requests for online subscriber data each year, documents reveal. Photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward The Justice Department asks Canadian technology companies for information on their subscribers dozens of times each year on behalf of foreign countries, seeking records from wireless carriers, messaging services and even online dating sites, according to newly released documents.
The disclosure was in response to an inquiry from Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, who earlier this year asked federal departments and agencies for details on when and how often they seek subscriber data from various telecom and service providers. Cotler shared the documents he received on the Liberal Party’s website, including responses from departments including Justice, National Defence and Public Safety, as well as other bodies such as the Canadian Radio-television Commission and Environment Canada.
The results are an “inconsistent mess,” according to Michael Geist, law professor at the University of Ottawa and Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, who highlighted the response to Cotler on his blog Thursday.
The requests on behalf of other countries were made by the Justice Department’s International Assistance Group, tasked with helping international law enforcement efforts as part of Canada’s treaty obligations.
The IAG says from Jan. 1, 2010 until May 22, 2014, there have been approximately 250 requests made to various service providers including the country’s large telecommunications companies, Ontario-based messaging app Kik, BlackBerry, Yahoo.ca, as well as the Vancouver-based company Plenty of Fish, the world’s largest online dating service, and Adam4Adam, a dating and hookup site for gay men.
The oddest name on the list of service providers IAG contacted for user data is Club Penguin, an online children’s video game website owned by Disney Canada.
Meet singles in your area — and then the Justice Department can pass your dating choices on to other countries!
(Both Plenty of Fish and Adam4Adam have been contacted about their cooperation with law enforcement but did not respond in time for this article.)
The Justice Department requests are a mere drop in the bucket of how often various parts of the federal government turn to the private sector for subscriber information. The Defence Department told Cotler that military police do ask for subscriber data but that there was “no way to generate aggregate statistics” in a timely fashion due to the “thousands of case files” it would have to review.
“The results paint a disturbing picture,” Geist said of the newly released documents detailing government agencies policies on obtaining subscriber information. According to him the various federal agencies that seek out Canadians’ information do so with inconsistent record-keeping, with many of the disclosures possibly not leading to any criminal charges at all.
“The overall picture painted by the data shows remarkable inconsistency by government departments and agencies about when they ask for subscriber information, whether they seek a warrant, the records that they keep, and the effectiveness of requests,” said Geist.
It’s also unclear how closely federal bodies are following Supreme Court of Canada’s recent Spencer decision. The ruling by Canada’s top court in R. v. Spencer in June appeared to mandate search warrants for law enforcement requests for subscriber information, but as Geist notes, the Department of Public Safety has not made judicial authorization necessary for access requests and that it is “still examining this decision.”
The Toronto Star also reported this week that Canadian law enforcement agencies are still making warrantless requests for telecom customers’ personal data despite the Supreme Court ruling.
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