The Lawful Access Act, Bill C-22 in Canada, marks the tenth attempt to establish a framework that, among other things, addresses barriers to investigations in the digital environment. However, it’s still not getting it entirely right. CIGI Senior Fellow Leah West calls for targeted amendments to the bill to better protect privacy, cybersecurity and human rights.
The bill would allow law enforcement to begin a process to obtain judicial authorization to compel electronic service providers to produce information related to Canadians’ online and telecommunications activities, including information that can be used to identify the user. To effectively investigate and prosecute crime in our quickly evolving digital world, there must be a balance; in this policy brief, West details “adequate safeguards to prevent law enforcement from engaging in unreasonable fishing expeditions, to prevent foreign governments from accessing Canadian-based information to further repressive or political ends, and to prevent data retention and interception capabilities from posing a substantial risk to the privacy of Canadians.”
