More On Privacy Law Concerns,
Coming Soon To An ISP Near You !!!

“Lawful Access” refers to the legal interception of communications, as well as the search and seizure of information by law enforcement agencies. Under current criminal statutes these seizures have to be authorized, usually by a judicial order.

This would not be the case under current “lawful access” proposals.

Under “lawful access” laws police, CSIS agents and competition bureau agents would be empowered to obtain subscriber data such as name, address, email address, IP address plus the content from the Telecommunications Service Provider (TSP) upon mere request and without any requirement for reasonable grounds to justify the request for such information. Further, the TSP would be gagged from informing their customers of such information requests.

There is an ethical dilemma that the TSP carriers as well as the informed public will have to contend with.

The question here though is the cost of compliance for the TSP’s - in terms of money, technology and resources.

In the end the consumer may end up paying for the development, deployment and support of this intercept technology.

Also smaller TSP’s need special consideration under the proposed act, otherwise the number of service providers will shrink due to the cost of implementing the interception technology.

But should they have to?

The TSP is in the business of Internet connectivity and related services and should not be considered to be an arm of any law enforcement agency. Similar to a hotel suite that is being used for surveillance by the police.

To read the complete proposal, follow this link: Complete Lawful Access Proposal