Liberals offer more search and intercept powers to police and CSIS with new bill

OTTAWA — After their first crack at creating a new lawful access regime was criticized from all sides, the Liberals tabled a new bill Thursday proposing a narrower set of warranted and unwarranted search powers for police and intelligence agencies.

In Bill C-22, the Liberals offer significantly circumscribed powers to authorities compared to those proposed in bill C-2 tabled last spring.

This time, the government is proposing that police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) only be able to approach telecommunications companies and ask them if, yes or no, an individual is a client before having to get a warrant for more information.

Last spring’s proposal would have allowed them to approach any service provider (including those protected by privilege such as doctors and lawyers) to ask if an individual was a client, for how long, where, and if the company knew of other service providers who had dealt with that individual. All without a warrant.

The bill also proposes new obligations to yet-to-be-defined electronic service providers to organize and retain for one year certain types of client metadata — including location —  in a way that makes it obtainable by law enforcement or CSIS with a warrant.

But that data will now exclude information such as web-browsing history and social media history.

The ability to obtain Canadians’ private information and intercept communications, known as “lawful access,” is one of the most intrusive powers afforded to police and intelligence agencies.

But Canadian police and intelligence agencies have long complained that the country lags significantly behind its G7 counterparts because it does not have a lawful access regime adapted to the digital age.

The Liberals took a first stab at the issue in their first ever bill, C-2. But the proposals were lambasted by opposition parties and privacy and security advocates alike for being overly broad and invasive.

More to come .

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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