Dark Information Sharing

Here are a few links I mentioned regarding the Dark side of Information Sharing last night at Nik Badminton's sold out Dark Futures conference.

These are public sector/government cases in Canada, or regarding Canadians, where you have no choice on how your information is shared. There are demonstrable negative affects as a result. We should work on these.

• You can be detained, hospitalized, and forced to take drugs for a month under the Mental Health Act in B.C (read section 5). Being detained under the MHA removes Criminal Code luxuries like right to a lawyer or a trial. Here is the case of Vince, and a few others: FOCUS Magazine: An Overabundance of Caution [PDF].

• Crossing The Line is the case of Ellen Richardson and a few others. It is the result of the CPIC Database being shared with the FBI, who now share it with at least the DHS and CBP, who are using this data to prevent Canadians from crossing the U.S. border. You can read the Ontario Privacy Commissioner's report here, indiscriminate disclosure [PDF].
  

  Federal law allows personal information to be transferred outside Canada, even without the consent of the individual to whom the information relates. Once the information is in foreign hands, the laws of that country will apply.

• Part of the UKUSA agreement that binds the Five Eyes:

The parties agree to the exchange of the products of the following operations relating to foreign communications Collection of traffic and Acquisition of information.

While each of these countries can't spy on their own citizens, they appear to be sharing the results of spying on each other's citizens.

• National Security Letters (NSLs, or Red Letters) don't require judicial oversight, and have a "gag order" or non-disclosure order.

Nicholas Merrill writing in The Washington Post said, "Living under the gag order has been stressful and surreal. Under the threat of criminal prosecution, I must hide all aspects of my involvement in the case...from my colleagues, my family and my friends. When I meet with my attorneys I cannot tell my girlfriend where I am going or where I have been."

• The Trans-Pacific Partnership:
  

  Prevents governments in TPP countries from requiring the use of local servers for data storage.

  If signed this way, we will be required to share any/all data bound in this agreement on our citizens with all members states (51) in the TPP. Section 30.1. of BC FOIPPA says data must be stored and accessed in Canada, so these appear to conflict.

• Canadian Political Parties are exempt from privacy laws. Here's a comparative analysis.

If you have an interest in Privacy, Security, & Technology, check out my PrivaSecTech blog, Facebook page, and Twitter feed. Ask me your related questions on any one of those, or here, and I'd be glad to answer!