SPP : "We're getting better all the time."

Stockwell Day, the RCMP, Bell Canada and Microsoft will soon be partnering on "a national cyber-security strategy that will seek to protect key infrastructure as well as Canadians' identities".

"A high-level security conference being hosted by the Conference Board of Canada" will take place on Nov 5 and 6th.
The Conference Board of Canada, you may recall, partnered with the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to launch the North American Future 2025 Project , "to help guide the ongoing Security and Prosperity Partnership". At their conference in Calgary last April their agenda noted : "the overriding future goal of North America is to achieve joint optimum utilization of the available water."

So you'll excuse me if I cast a jaundiced eye on whatever new plan to protect my "Canadian identity" they might be hosting this time round because one of the original objectives of the SPP was "improving the coordination of intelligence-sharing, cross-border law enforcement".

At least Canada's Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, has been invited this time and will be addressing the conference on "Balancing Privacy with Cyber Security".

In May there was a "Server in the Sky" meet-up in San Francisco to discuss the FBI's proposed shared database of biometric information - our fingerprints, palm prints, and iris scan data to be exchanged among the International Information Consortium of US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and eventually the EU.
Ms Stoddart only heard about the conference by reading about it in the British press.

As Ms Stoddart said on CBC in response to that meeting in May : "Canada has a very weak 25 year old Privacy Act with no human rights standards built in to our agreements with other countries." Additionally she was alarmed by "the conflating of criminals and suspected terrorists", the lack of oversight of the biometric info once it passes to other countries, and the rise of "a surveillance society".

One of our partners in the International Information Consortium is already well on the way to becoming a surveillance society:
The Daily Mail via Statism Watch :

"Every person in Britain could have their internet history, email records and telephone calls tracked under a proposed £12 billion plan by ministers.

The system would see hundreds of hidden devices planted to tap into communications on the internet and via mobile phone providers.

And a national database would be created to store the information which officials say would help in the fight against terrorism and organised crime."

I thought we already had Facebook for that.

From the blog of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada :

"In terms of Canadian participation [in Server in the Sky], our citizens rightfully expect that their personal information remains safeguarded and understandably, could be reluctant to see that information freely shared with two countries that were ranked near the bottom of Privacy International’s ratings of privacy protection round the world."

David Black, manager of the RCMP's cyber infrastructure protection section, says of the Bell/Microsoft/RCMP plan for "the protection of critical cyber infrastructure and the convergence of technological and physical security", presumably to be shared in due course with the other members of the FBI's International Information Consortium :

"We're getting better all the time."

Cross-posted at Creekside

SPP and Server in the Sky

CP : U.S. security chief says fingerprints not private

"The U.S. homeland security czar says Canadians shouldn't fear plans to expand international sharing of biometric information such as fingerprints.
Michael Chertoff says a person's fingerprints are like footprints.
"They're not particularly private," Chertoff said in an interview Wednesday during a brief visit to Ottawa."Your fingerprint's hardly personal data, because you leave it on glasses and silverware and articles all over the world."

Well that's just crap, isn't it? Having a glass of wine in a public restaurant is not at all like having your fingerprints fed into a database like Server in the Sky.
You remember Server in the Sky, don't you? It's the FBI's proposed shared database of biometric information - our fingerprints, palm prints, and iris scan data - to be exchanged among the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand.
The International Information Consortium, as the five founding nations including Canada call themselves, will meet behind closed doors in May in San Francisco to plan their strategy.

CP : "An internal RCMP briefing note on the Server in the Sky project recommends the national police force continue to support the initiative."

As noted back here, perhaps one of Server in the Sky's most alarming aspects is that Canada's Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, heard of it for the first time in January by reading about it in a UK newspaper.
No Canadian officials had informed her of the project.

Integrate This! discusses the new biometric BC Enhanced Driver's License developed in conjunction with Washington state. Jennifer Stoddart describes it as creating a de facto national ID card in both countries.
IT :

"The EDLs require biometric and other personal information on Canadians and Americans to be stored in a common database that is accessible by security agencies in both countries.
Because Canada’s Public Safety department is insisting on all provinces developing a similar EDL to B.C.’s, and all of them will be compatible with the REAL ID program in the U.S., the Harper government is essentially working on a de facto North American ID card behind closed doors through the SPP."

Stockwell Day met with Chertoff on Wednesday to discuss SPP initiatives in advance of the SPP Leaders' Summit in New Orleans on April 21.

Cross-posted at Creekside

"Server in the Sky"

"Server in the Sky" is the FBI's proposed database sharing of biometric information - our fingerprints, palm prints, and iris scan data - to be exchanged among the US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and eventually the EU, to catch criminals and terrorists. The International Information Consortium, as the five founding nations - including Canada - style themselves, will meet behind closed doors in May in San Francisco to plan their strategy. They do not hold press conferences.

Tom Bush, the FBI Assistant Director of the Criminal Justice Information Services Division was on CBC's The Current last week. "It's to catch the worst of the worst", he said, "murderers and rapists".
However an RCMP statement carried in the Globe and Mail instead placed greater importance on the sharing of "information on terrorist files".

Perhaps one of Server in the Sky's most alarming aspects is that Canada's Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, heard of it for the first time last week by reading about it in The Guardian. No Canadian officials had informed her of the project.

From The Guardian : "The FBI is proposing to establish three categories of suspects in the shared system :

• "internationally recognised terrorists and felons",
• those who are "major felons and suspected terrorists", and finally
• those who the subjects of terrorist investigations or criminals with international links."

"Suspected terrorists"? "Subjects of terrorist investigations"?
A few paragraphs into the FBI's explanation and we're already into Maher Arar territory.

Privacy Commissioner Stoddart agrees and firmly says so on CBC's The Current.: Canada has a very weak 25 year old Privacy Act, she says, with no human rights standards built in to our agreements with other countries. Additionally she is alarmed by "the conflating of criminals and suspected terrorists", the lack of oversight of the biometric info once it passes to other countries, and the rise of "a survellance society".

She also makes this biting point at the blog at the Office of the Privacy Commisssioner of Canada :

"In terms of Canadian participation, our citizens rightfully expect that their personal information remains safeguarded and understandably, could be reluctant to see that information freely shared with two countries that were ranked near the bottom of Privacy International’s ratings of privacy protection around the world."

All hail Ms Stoddart! Stellar job you're doing over there.

Also, as Council of Canadians points out, despite Canadian horror at the grotesque misuse of intelligence data in the Arar case and the subsequent support for recommendations for greater paper-trail accountability, getting rid of any legal impediments to cross-border intelligence information-sharing was one of the primary security aims of ... yes you guessed correctly ... the SPP.

Cross-posted at Creekside