Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act

There had been multiple attempts to introduce "lawful access" legislation, allowing police to avoid the necessity of a warrant to obtain information, since 1999 when the Liberal Party of Canada first proposed it. However, none of them have been successfully passed. NDP MPs Anne Minh-Thu Quach and Carol Hughes have criticised the Liberal party given their previous support for near-identical legislation in the past. The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and Canadian Lawyer magazine have suggested that such proposals may violate the Constitution of Canada, and be challenged before the Supreme Court as unreasonable search and seizure of digital information. In 2007, Toews' predecessor Stockwell Day stated that "we have not and we will not be proposing legislation to grant police the powers to get information from internet providers without a warrant". Toews has dismissed the comment, and noted that the requirement for court oversight of police was "an additional burden on the criminal justice system." the title "Bill C-30: Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act" instead. == Content of bill ==

The bill would have allowed authorities to demand access to subscriber information from both ISPs and telephone providers without needing to present a warrant - and would have required telecommunications providers to ensure that there was a back door entrance to allow all communications to be intercepted when desired. The bill would also have allowed any of these persons to make copies of the data taken from citizens' digital devices, without oversight or a right of appeal. The bill would have increased the number of actions that can be legally carried out by police officers without a warrant. In the current Criminal Code, section 487.11 allows a police officer to "exercise any of the powers described in subsection 487(1) or 492.1(1) without a warrant". In Bill C-30, the section was amended to include "exercise any of the powers described in section 487, 492.1 or 492.2 without a warrant". In Bill C-30, tracking data was defined as "data that relates to the location of a transaction, individual or thing". Transmission data has a more complicated definition, but essentially refers to meta-data that is attached to a message/communication in order to aid in its transmission to its intended destination, such as IP address, phone number, time, duration, size. Section 64 of the bill was a final "catch-all" that says that if the government decided it overlooked any additional abilities it believed it needed to fulfill "generally, for carrying out the purposes and provisions of this act", it could have retroactively add those abilities to the law. == Support and opposition to the bill ==

Although Stephen Harper led a majority government, all four minority parties, the NDP, Liberals, Bloc Québécois, and Green Party were opposed to the lawful access provisions of C-30. In addition, John Williamson (New Brunswick Southwest), David Tilson (Dufferin—Caledon) and Rob Anders (Calgary West) were among the Conservative MPs who opposed the bill. Political criticism from the Liberals, NDP and Greens has suggested it was hypocritical for the Conservatives to introduce the bill, after scrapping both the long-form census and gun registry in the name of privacy. The bill was supported by many Canadian police agencies. Supporters of the bill have stated that all Canada's attorneys-general also support the bill, while critics have challenged that as untrue. The Ministry had estimated that the initial cost of the bill to be $80 Million over four years, and $6.7 Million dollars each year after that. The ISPs claimed the cost could be much higher. According to the CBC, the costs would have either translated as higher telecommunications costs for Canadian consumers, or increased federal taxes to pay for the program. Green Party leader Elizabeth May dubbed the title propaganda, noting that "other than the fact it’s for propaganda purposes, there’s no reason to call it about Internet predators", suggesting that the Conservatives were trying to use the rhetorical ploy of appealing to the sake of children to garner support. Opposition had focused on the provisions that would allow law enforcement agencies and government-appointed inspectors to access identifying information from ISPs on demand, without a warrant. Documents leaked online showed the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police asking members to find examples of cases that would have profited from lawful access, but no cases had been found, leading critics to charge that police were already able to prosecute predators successfully in Canada with existing legislation. Federal deputy privacy commissioner Chantal Bernier argued the proposed powers are too broad: "As the legislation is written now, it could impact any law-abiding Canadian citizen." and the Toronto Star argued that it was the "most grotesque intrusion into our lives". Meanwhile, Ann Cavoukian, the Ontario Privacy Commissioner warned that the collected information would be a "gold mine" for potential hackers. All of the nation's privacy commissioners issued a joint statement condemning the bill. Liberal MP Sean Casey satirically asked Toews and Nicholson to openly divulge their own web surfing histories. == Similar legislation in other countries ==

Government officials claimed that similar legislation has been introduced in several other countries already, including the United States, Great Britain and Australia. However, critics have said that other countries should serve as a warning to Canada, noting the many errors and broad overreach of their legislation, with police requesting the private information for mundane tasks such as determining school district eligibility. Similar legislation has been drafted in the Philippines despite being met with up to eight petitions filed with the highest court in the Philippines questioning the constitutionality of the legislation. The Filipino legislation is intended, like the Canadian bill, to prevent cybersex, online child pornography, identity theft, and spamming. However, in addition to these crimes, the Filipino bill also makes libel a cybercrime punishable by up to twelve years. It is generally this last issue that has privacy and right’s groups concerned over the legislation. “It violates Filipinos' rights to free expression and it is wholly incompatible with the Philippine government's obligations under international law,” said Brad Adams, Asia director of US-based Human Rights Watch. In Australia, Cybercrime Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 allows telecommunications companies to retain customer traffic data for longer if a customer is suspected in a cybercrime, unlike the proposed Canadian legislation however, this information cannot be handed over to police without a warrant. Like the Canadian bill, the Australian version was met with heavy criticism and a report from the Joint Select Committee on Cyber-Safety of Australia took issue with four main flaws in the Australian legislation and made 13 recommendations, which Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the government will “consider”. The first flaw of the bill according to the Joint Select Committee is that the bill “fails to distinguish between the retention of traffic metadata, such as the time and destination of an online communication, and the contents of that communication.” The second flaw of the bill is that “there is a possibility foreign governments could be given access to data in relation to crimes that in Australia would not be serious enough to warrant an interception, like political crimes”. Thirdly there is a possibility that foreign governments would not assist the investigation into some cases of child exploitation because they are not treated as seriously in some countries. "Many countries, including many European countries, impose a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment for the possession, dissemination, sale or rent of child sexual abuse material," the report said, which would not trigger the penalty threshold for a "serious" crime. The final flaw the Joint Select Committee found with the bill is “the potential for data on Australians to be shared with countries "at large", rather than limited to those that have also acceded to the Council of Europe convention or have an existing formal mutual assistance arrangement with Australia.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation highlighted the fact that the warrantless British system has resulted in police making an average of more than 1,700 queries daily, for personal information about citizens from their telecommunications providers.; == Vic Toews controversy ==

Public safety minister Vic Toews, who introduced the bill, had become a lightning rod for criticism after suggesting people had to choose to "either stand with us or with the child pornographers", a remark that was said to be "so far out whack with the standards of polite discourse that it kind of scared [supporters] off". Toews drew additional criticism after admitting that he had not entirely read the legislation that he put forward. NDP MP Charlie Angus went so far as to ask "How can Canadians trust a minister who cannot even read his own legislation?". As a consequence, Toews had become a target of social media protests against the bill, including a Twitter campaign to inform him of Canadians' everyday mundane activities in an ironic bid to highlight their perceived loss of privacy if the bill should pass. Another Twitter user retrieved a copy of Toews' 2008 divorce particulars from the local Winnipeg courthouse and began spreading the contained information, which included details about his extramarital affairs with his family babysitter and a young Conservative staffer, the latter producing a child, as well as his spending habits, It was revealed that the IP address associated with the account originated within the House of Commons. Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird suggested the account was a creation of the NDP playing a "dirty, sleazy, Internet game". and the account was quickly shut down, although later determined to belong to a Liberal staffer named Adam Carroll. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police stated that Toews had referred them to online threats, and that they were "pondering" an investigation, after the Anonymous hacker collective stated that it would be launching "Operation White North", and threatened to reveal further details from Toews' private life if the bill were not withdrawn, noting they "will not allow a politician who allows his citizens no secrets to have any secrets of his own." Anonymous released the name of Vic Toews' mistress in a release on YouTube. Bill C-30 was also one of the targets of the new initiative by Anonymous called "Operation Kill Billz". == Progression of bill ==

As a result of the opposition to the bill, the government referred it back to the House Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for possible amendment before introducing it for Second Reading. Citing public opposition, the government announced in February 2013 that the legislation had been withdrawn. Nicholson stated that the government had "listened to the concerns of Canadians who have been very clear on this and responding to that". He added, “We will not be proceeding with Bill C-30. And any attempts to modernize the criminal code will not contain …warrantless mandatory disclosure of basic subscriber information or the requirement for telecommunications service providers to build intercept capability within their systems.” Bill C-55, which was originally part of the original Internet surveillance legislation, is all that remains of the contentious Bill C-30. Bill C-55 is needed to bring Canada’s emergency wiretapping powers into conformity with a 2012 Supreme Court decision that struck down a 20-year-old law on the grounds that it did not require police to inform those who had been wiretapped after the fact or provide for any other oversight of the police power. Thus on account of this bill, any persons subject to government surveillance or wiretapping in Canada must legally be informed of the surveillance after the fact. == References ==