Patriot Act seen as threat to Canadians' privacy

[CHIMO]

Patriot Act seen as threat to Canadians' privacy
Last Updated Tue, 20 Jun 2006 14:10:18 EDT
CBC News

Considerably more could be done to prevent foreign governments, Washington in particular, from collecting personal information about Canadians, Canada's privacy commissioner said in her annual report.

Concern over the flow of information became heightened following passage of the U.S. Patriot Act, passed by Congress shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Jennifer Stoddart said in the report on the Privacy Act released on Tuesday.

A large majority of Canadians are worried about the flow of information collected at the U.S. border, Stoddart said, citing recent polling commissioned by her office.

"The overall issue of transborder dataflows has certainly caught the imagination of Canadians, and we have received inquiries and complaints which focus on it as a threat to the privacy," she said.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/06/20/privacy-report.html

http://cbc.ca/asithappens/media/dailyshow/2006-06-20-aih1.ram

Starts at 1:39 in the first part.

Undocumented, untraceable, verbal information flowing both ways across the border.

[MrPrax]

1. How Orwellian...

From the first CBC link listing the reports recommendations:

Among the report's findings and recommendations to the Canada Border Services Agency:

* The CBSA needs a co-ordinated method of identifying and tracking all flows of its transborder data.

(a solution far scarier than the threat)

* Information is often disclosed without first obtaining approval from a designated CBSA official, which contravenes the agency's policy.

(In the EU, approval has to be obtained from the people themselves, but since corps hate that...a designated official will decide for you...apparantly in the EU, they stupidly think people have a right to control their personal information through personal consent laws)

* There are also weaknesses in the record-keeping associated with disclosures of information.

(shouldn't be if the PIPEDIA, the Charter and related legislation were enforced and aggressively pursued by the government and it's desginated officials)

* Activities associated with sharing data across borders should be made more transparent.

(I believe the contracts that Lougheed secured for the Census as well as the many many provincial contracts under the guise of 'free market efficienies' and privatization that were handed out to every American company from EDS to Maximus to Accenture) were openly bidded upon under the NAFTA and hardly transparent

Refreshing to know that Canada's Privacy Commssioner finally noticed that the barn door is opened

[CHIMO]

2. Also

Interesting, is that all the financial information is being cleared through the US and the Canadian entities (corporations) are not on the scene. So when takeovers or other transactions occur, just remember that someone else has the information.

[CHIMO]

3. And

A bit more.

US Firm Gave FBI, CIA Consumers’ Financial Data

On the domestic front, Suskind’s book also discloses that a major US financial company provided the FBI and CIA information on the financial transactions and wire transfers of consumers world-wide. The company, First Data Corporation, is the parent firm of Western Union. First Data becomes the latest major US corporation to be linked with US government spying. Last month, USA Today revealed the National Security Agency has secretly collected the phone call records of millions of Americans with the help of AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/21/142213

And just a bit of Googling:

First Data and MasterCard Processing Payments Electronically for
Burger King Canada

Toronto, March 22, 2005 – Expanding upon its card processing business for Burger King® Corporation in the United States, First Data Corp. (NYSE: FDC) today announced it is now processing card payments at Burger King restaurants in Canada. First Data is handling MasterCard® card processing and settlement for 123 corporate-owned Burger King restaurants throughout Canada. This represents approximately one-third of the total number of corporate-owned Burger King restaurants in Canada.

http://www.mastercard.com/canada/general/press/pr/05/pr_2005_03_22.html

[MrPrax]

4. Exactly...

You got it...great examples of a problem that the Canadian government is not even willing to allow their various 'reviews' to even explore, let alone enshrine as a basic consumer protection. Let's face it--most people are concerned about this form of privacy invasion via the corporate private sector, not whether 'some terrorist' gets their credit information. The main question is whether you have the right to control information about yourself (self-autonomy) -- not whether some terrorists can steal your ID or some nonsense.

I do not like the fact that these very important questions that speak to the Charter-rights of every Canadian is being done quietly in committees in a national security context where the changes being proposed have little to do with 'personal security' and has everything to do with the type of policies companies like ATT are writing.

BC privacy commissioner zeroed in on some of the problems:

The ACLU memorandum is one of more than 500 submissions to Loukidelis's review of the privacy implications of the USA PATRIOT Act. He called the review after the B.C. Government and Service Employees' Union filed a court challenge against the B.C. Liberal government's plan to contract out the administration of the Medical Services Plan and PharmaCare. The BCGEU attached an affidavit to its legal petition from a different ACLU lawyer, Jameel Jaffer, claiming that the USA PATRIOT Act would permit the FBI to obtain entire databases of records without telling anyone.

The B.C. Liberal government is negotiating a contract with a Canadian subsidiary of U.S.­based Maximus to administer the Medical Services Plan and PharmaCare. The company filed a submission to Loukidelis acknowledging that outsourcing providers would have "custody" of personal information but not "control" as defined in freedom-of-information legislation. The company claimed that these records will remain in B.C. at all times.

"Maximus has solely an ownership relationship with Maximus in Canada," the company stated. "It also has some U.S. staff who have been and will be seconded to work on this project in British Columbia. There will be no linkages across the border that would facilitate or permit the transfer or exchange of personal information in an electronic or manual manner. The staff employed by Maximus Canada or any subsidiaries are subject only to Canadian privacy laws, policies, contractual obligations, and procedures."

Georgia Straight