Public Safety and Data Privacy

According to a press release from the Minister’s office at the time, “The Government of Canada is proud to promote an open, resilient and trusted cyberspace." This is, of course, not borne out by the evidence. As the National Post pointed out,

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’ attempt to demonise opponents of his new Internet law — you’re either with the government, or with the “child pornographers,” he said on Monday — isn’t the first time he’s sought to demonise critics. In November, he said Liberals should “finally stop putting the rights of child pornographers and organised crime ahead of the rights of law-abiding citizens.” Two weeks ago, he urged the NDP “to listen to the police, listen to the provinces, and support these balanced measures that protect law-abiding Canadians and their children.”

That government was then the least open Canadian government, at least in living memory. When was the last time you saw Prime Minister Harper in a scrum - risking facing the press in an unscripted or uncontrolled environment? This government reflexively denies or delays Freedom of Information requests. Ministers and senior bureaucrats must route all communications through the Prime Minister’s Office. With a reduced, and possibly cowed, CBC and an increasingly fact-free mainstream media, ‘open’ is a quaint notion from a bygone century.

Similarly, the ‘Lawful Access’ legislation, which has been promised to be reintroduced this spring, will reduce the resiliency of Canadian information infrastructure due to the deep distrust of citizens that the Harper government has. This legislation will dramatically increase the amount of information about citizens that the police have ready access to without judicial or civilian oversight. It ramps up the state’s surveillance capabilities, in other words. Needless to say, or rather what must be said, is that increased surveillance by the state of its population is the hallmark of authoritarian regimes, not democracy.

It used to be that Freedom of Information meant that citizens had a right to know what the powerful were doing behind closed doors. Privacy meant that citizens were free to express their opinions and live their lives with some assurances of anonymity from the state. In other words, the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act served to address the imbalance of power between the state and its citizens.

In Harper’s world, these concepts have been reversed. The Harper government needs privacy to conduct its business away from the prying eyes of the public, who can’t be trusted with the kind of information that the government has to deal with. Similarly, as citizens, we are all suspects, and the state must have the freedom to have access to whatever information it deems necessary about us to ensure that we are harmless.

If we are not careful, Data Privacy Day may become a day of remembrance instead of a day of celebration.