Implications of China v. Google Standoff to Canada

As many of our readers surely know, Google has been reassessing whether to continue its operations in China following a series of hacking incidents that allegedly originated from that country.

Prof. Ronald Deibert of UofT revealed today that the hackers also attempted to access Google directories, which was not widely reported when the story first broke. Deibert is one of the experts Google is consulting with on how to respond to the incidents.

Despite the The Investigative Powers of the 21st Century Act (IP21C) that was tabled before the prorogue, Deibert claims that cyberspace generally operates in a policy vacuum in Canada.

His recent paper with the Canadian International Council, China’s Cyberspace Control Strategy: An Overview and Consideration of Issues for Canadian Policy, states,

Like many other countries, Canada depends on economic exchange with China, and is home to a large and growing Chinese diaspora community that can be vocal critics of China’s human rights policies. It is also the home of some of the leading research and development projects on Internet censorship, surveillance and information warfare that, at times, are antagonistically linked to China.

He proposes that Canada:

(1) Take a leadership position in promoting a global, multilateral agenda around arms control in cyberspace. The present state-based cyber security agenda is almost entirely absent of voices or forums dedicated to creating norms of mutual restraint, confidence building and information sharing.
(2) Take a more active interest in the role played by Canadian companies which support China’s vast censorship and surveillance regime.
(3) Lead by example in domestic policy areas, including addressing loose laws on wiretaps, ambiguous oversight of intelligence agencies, shoddy content filtering mechanisms around access to pornography and hate speech, questionable deep packet inspection and data retention practices by internet service providers, and other areas in which Canadian practices provide justification for China’s own domestic censorship and surveillance regime.

As much as I’m for more legislation and discussion over cybersecurity issues, especially for Criminal Code warrants, production and preservation orders, there is some room for privacy concerns here as well. Currently, the technological crime units of CSIS and the RCMP report threats to Public Safety Canada.

The recent Speech from the Throne lists a “cyber-security strategy to protect our digital infrastructure” as a goal to address “terrorists [who] threaten our country’s security.” Given the recent history of these agencies in dealing with threats, the IP21C may not have adequate oversight and scrutiny to protect the privacy interests of citizens.

Yes, cyber-security is important. But enough with the boogie-monsters already.