Canadian internet providers may be handing customers’ personal information to authorities or companies in Canada and elsewhere in violation of privacy laws, says a university study.
Canadians increasingly concerned
This comes at a time when parliament is considering giving security forces more power to collect personal information, and a when a public opinion survey by the government’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada shows that Canadians are increasingly concerned about their privacy.
“It appears that many Canadian internet carriers are in violation of their legal responsibilities” under Canadian privacy law, says the report by information policy researchers Andrew Clement at the University of Toronto and Jonathan Obar at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.
They looked at internet service providers and the information they are supposed to provide on how they protect customers’ privacy. These include whether:
- They inform customers when third parties request their personal information.
- They tell customers the circumstances under which they agree to those requests and provide customers’ information to third parties.
- They tell customers where their personal information is stored and processed.
- They try to avoid routing customers’ personal information outside Canada, where it could be intercepted by U.S. authorities, for example.
No carrier was found to be ‘completely transparent’
The researchers found not a single carrier was completely transparent about where customers’ personal information is routed and what foreign jurisdiction they might be under.
There was a widespread lack of transparency about privacy protection, said the researchers who ranked the providers according to specific criteria. They concluded transparency is a problem that makes it hard for customers to know what is happening to their personal data. They hope the report will push internet carriers to be more transparent and encourage the government to strengthen privacy laws.
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