Carly Weeks, CanWest News Service
Friday, February 23, 2007
OTTAWA – The federal privacy commissioner is squaring off against the RCMP for urging the government to adopt changes that would legally compel companies to give police personal information of employees and customers without their knowledge or consent – changes the office says would invade the privacy of Canadians.
The RCMP is also seeking changes to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) that would prohibit banks, employers and other institutions from letting Canadians know the police is looking at their personal information without the RCMP’s permission.
It’s a situation that has raised serious alarm with Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart and some MPs who say the changes would be a critical invasion of privacy and create massive potential for abuse in terms of how personal information is collected by and given to the police.
“It’s a basic tenet of our democracy that the citizen cannot be constrained by the state except in certain circumstances,” Stoddart said in an interview Thursday. “That’s why we have judges, that’s why we have search warrants. We cannot disrupt somebody’s private life unless it’s for a serious, real cause.”
The Commons privacy and ethics committee is currently undergoing a mandatory five-year review of PIPEDA, which is designed to protect how personal information is used, collected and disclosed by businesses.
Under the current law, companies may provide personal information without knowledge or consent if a government institution has demonstrated lawful authority to obtain it and suspects the information could relate to national security, the defence of Canada or the conduct of international affairs.
But the RCMP says the restrictions mean some companies are refusing to hand personal information over, creating a huge obstacle in their day-to-day activities.
It’s particularly challenging in cases where the police suspect someone may be involved in a crime, but doesn’t have enough information to get a search warrant they can present to a company in order to look into an individual’s background.
In fact, the clause is the “single largest impediment” to the force’s child-exploitation investigations, Supt. Earla-Kim McColl with the RCMP’s National Child Exploitation Centre, told committee members earlier this week. For example, she said Internet service providers often refuse to provide personal information to the police when conducting investigations into suspected pedophiles, she said.
The law “has impacted our ability to do what we normally do on a daily basis, which is go out to talk to people and ask them for basic information,” McColl said.
Changing the law to make it clear companies are allowed to provide the police with such information would simply serve as reassurance they won’t face negative consequences for answering such requests, according to the RCMP.
But the privacy commissioner warns loosening those restrictions will have serious implications for the privacy rights of Canadians and will create a situation where companies are forced to dig up information on their employees at the request of the police. “This means that basically the private sector is conscripted into being a branch of law enforcement,” Stoddart said. “This is a fundamental change in the democracy. This is a very worrying change. In my opinion, this is a very privacy-invasive measure.”
The privacy commissioner also highlighted serious concerns she has with existing portions of the privacy law, which allows the RCMP or Canadian Security Intelligence Service, to ask companies to collect more information on employees. “This is a major, major change,” she said. “It’s basically giving private organizations powers akin to those of the police.”
She said the clause is far too invasive and should be removed when the committee completes its review of the law.
Committee vice-chair and NDP ethics critic Pat Martin also criticized that portion of the law, saying it’s “deputizing” the private sector and creates huge potential for abuse of how and when companies pass personal information onto police. “To me, it opens the door, because private-sector organizations don’t operate under the same legal obligations as law enforcement and national security,” Martin told committee this week.
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