Twenty-Year-Old Requirement For 'Real-time, Full-time' Eavesdropping On Canadian Mobiles Revealed

from the thanks-to-Mr-Snowden dept

Mon, Sep 23rd 2013 9:45am — Glyn Moody

Even if it now seems likely that Linus Torvalds wasn't approached to add a backdoor to Linux, there are plenty of others that were asked and acquiesced, as this story from The Globe and Mail in Canada makes clear:

For nearly two decades, Ottawa officials have told telecommunications companies that one of the conditions of obtaining a licence to use wireless spectrum is to provide government with the capability to monitor the devices that use the spectrum. The Sept. 17 kickoff of the auction-countdown process will underscore that commitment, made out of sight of most Canadians because it is deemed too sensitive by the government.

The secret agreement apparently contains specific details of what telecom companies must provide: "Real-time, full-time" eavesdropping on conversations is just one of the capabilities sought by police, according to the standards. Authorities also want records of call logs, texts, keystrokes and other data, including "the most accurate geographical location known."
Communications made with encryption provided by the carrier must be decrypted: Carriers that help their customers scramble communications must decrypt them. "Law enforcement requires that any type of encryption algorithm that is initiated by the service provider must be provided to the law-enforcement agency unencrypted."
No doubt, many people might think phone companies should provide this kind of information, provided a properly executed court warrant is presented. What's problematic here is that this has been going secretly on for 20 years, with no public oversight and with no debate about where to draw the line for such surveillance. That discussion would hardly compromise police operations, but would provide vital transparency and legitimacy. The fact that two decades after the practice started the Canadian people are finally hearing about this capability now is probably yet another beneficial knock-on effect of Edward Snowden's leaks.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: canada, mobile phones, surveillance

24 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Ninja (profile), 23 Sep 2013 @ 8:16am

We haven't seen the bottom of the crap pit yet. The question is if things will change, if people will stand up against such violations. Hopefully the Canadians will do better than the Americans in this.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That Anonymous Coward (profile), 23 Sep 2013 @ 9:55am

Re:
they are to polite to make a big fuss over it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Falindraun (profile), 23 Sep 2013 @ 10:01am

i know i dont live in canada, but this is one of many reasons (some of which were financial) why i decided to get rid of my cell phone alltogether. the early '80s brick phone has all the features i need, it can make and recieve calls occasionally.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it

out_of_the_blue, 23 Sep 2013 @ 10:14am

"asked and acquiesced" -- No executive says no to MONEY.
Duty is to shareholders not the public. See how those statutes corporatists get passed are actually used against The People?

One of the three-letter spy agencies is RIM, which has for years claimed that Blackberry messages were secure, a lie that was slowly revealed as foreign gov'ts required it to open up the messages for them TOO.

"another beneficial knock-on effect of Edward Snowden's leaks."??? -- Beneficial HOW? Only way is if one believes that knowing details of the tyranny you're under somehow lightens it! -- Otherwise, the knowledge just leads to chilling effects on speech and actions, backed up by a Gestapo that makes charges based on evidence that can't be revealed even in court. And kids actually PAY to put SPY gadgets in their pocket 'cause it's SO cool!

The corporatized surveillance state is far greater threat to us all than what fanboys here rage against: alleged lack of "due process" for links to infringed content on pirate sites, Megaupload being shut down, abuses of copyright or DMCA, locked phones, and other typical Techdirt fare.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
David Muir (profile), 23 Sep 2013 @ 10:31am

It is bad for sure, but there may be some statements at odds here:

Glyn said:
"No doubt, many people might think phone companies should provide this kind of information, provided a properly executed court warrant is presented."

The article said:
"Wireless carriers are told they must be ready to hand over such data should police or intelligence agencies compel the release of the information through judicially authorized warrants."

I think we're a tiny bit better off in Canada because the warrants are not being authorized by a secret court. Of course, I may be naive.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ryk, 23 Sep 2013 @ 10:38am

Hang on...
and which common carrier had provided you with a guarantee of privacy? Please present written proof...

It is clear that many have been acting on an assumption of privacy...

Remember this simple rule... "if you do not own the media which you communicate over, assume it to be untrusted and act accordingly".

The fact that it is believed that there is privacy over a common carrier network is your own oversight. If you wish to secure your voice and data, apply your own encryption. It may not be infallible, but it will thwart casual interception. If you are the target of a legal intercept, then you have far greater issues to contend with.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
mattshow (profile), 23 Sep 2013 @ 10:40am

This is one of the topics that hasn't exactly been a secret; it's just that no one has been talking about it.

If you google "Solicitor General's Enforcement Standards" you can find all sorts of interesting documents, including this one-pager from the Department of the Solicitor General complaining that the requirements only apply to circuit-switched phone networks and not packet-based ones (it's an old document, I'm not sure if the SGES have been updated to address this).

http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/smt-gst.nsf/vwapj/solcitor.pdf/$FILE/solcitor.pdf
[ link to this | view in thread ]
mattshow (profile), 23 Sep 2013 @ 10:45am

Re:
I think we're a tiny bit better off in Canada because the warrants are not being authorized by a secret court. Of course, I may be naive.

CSE's doesn't really need a warrant because they're not supposed to be operating in Canada unless they're providing technical support to another agency (in which case, they are limited to whatever authorization that agency has managed to obtain).

Technically, the court where CSIS gets it's warrants from isn't *secret*: it's the Federal Court. But while the court might not be secret, quite often the proceedings are, so it's not a big gain.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Chris Brand, 23 Sep 2013 @ 10:48am

"Lawful Access"
That's fascinating, given that the government of the day has been trying to push through "lawful access" bills for several years now. Those bills would basically force, well, this. So if they already had this, why were they trying to pass those bills ?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2013 @ 11:11am

Re: "Lawful Access"
That's because the "Lawful Access" provisions also changed the standard for acquisition of the data from Probable cause to the much easier to obtain (fake) Reasonable Suspicion.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That One Guy (profile), 23 Sep 2013 @ 11:33am

Re: Re:
Their national sport/combat simulation is hockey, I'd say that politeness only goes so far.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DannyB (profile), 23 Sep 2013 @ 12:01pm

Something else to think about
Consider this.

A phone OEM (original equipment manufacturer), let's give them a fictitious name, Samsorolpple.

Now Samsorolpple finds that in order to sell its devices in Canada, its equipment must meet this spying requirement.

Once Samsorolpple has gone through the design, engineering and manufacturing of a mobile phone, should it have yet another model device for non-Canadian countries? Or would it be cheaper to just market the same spying enabled device in other countries?

Now, suppose the spooks in another country, let's say the People's Democratik Untied Skates (or PDUS) get wind of this. Do you suppose the PDUS will also want in on the spying enabled action of Samsorolpple's phones, and those of every other OEM?

Could the PDUS learn of this from the Canadian's by secret cooperation? What about an Untied Kingdom? Or a far south pacific upside down land peopled entirely by criminals?

So what are the odds that people in non free countries are already being spied on by their governments, for the last 20 years, in some cases in violation of their own laws and constitutions?

Thank goodness that we who live in the good ol' US and other major developed free world countries don't have to worry about this.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2013 @ 12:20pm

i would have thought that now this most important piece of information is out, the next most important bit is who wanted/introduced it, closely followed by what reasons were given to warrant spying on the Canadian people in the first place? was this some drag on from the end of an era somewhere? considering the number of countries that appear to have been doing this, it doesn't bode good for Democracy, does it? these countries seem to have less freedom and privacy than the ones reported as being totally locked down. how can any country that supposedly has freedom and privacy up high on the list of priorities justify this behavior??
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2013 @ 12:32pm

Re: Hang on...
We are ALL targets of intercepts,encrypted or not, legal or not.

We ALL have far greater issues to contend with.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
PRMan, 23 Sep 2013 @ 12:52pm

Re: Re: Re:
If the Canadian people had a hockey game against the MPs, maybe they would have a line brawl. But then after the game they would all go get a beer and nothing would change.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ChrisB (profile), 23 Sep 2013 @ 2:07pm

Re: Something else to think about
This isn't a device problem, it is a telco problem. They require that data coming in from the mobile phone must be monitored and provided to CSIS.

This can't be device issue. Think about it, the only reason the telco knows its you making a call is the SIM card in your phone. You can move the SIM card to another phone and make a call.

This issue has nothing to do with Samsung, Apple, etc.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
BernardoVerda (profile), 23 Sep 2013 @ 2:49pm

No surprise. It's not actually hidden (hiding in plain sight)
I learned this by complete accident some years ago while killing time by wandering around a bit while waiting for a friend to meet me at the local mega-mall's transit stop -- near which, it turned out, CSIS and CSE openly occupied several floors of the Rogers-owned (and branded) 2nd tower in the local mega-mall complex, immediately adjacent to Rogers' own floors -- they were listed, quite plainly, on the building directory.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Slicerwizard, 23 Sep 2013 @ 4:38pm

WTF?
Mobile phone networks have the same lawful intercept requirements as legacy landline systems. And Canada's had them for a long time. How is this news?

https://www.google.ca/search?q=lawful+intercept+canada
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2013 @ 4:45pm

Big Brother is watching ^
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2013 @ 5:04pm

Isn't private communication supposed to be a fundamental human right? Does this mean we are all considered sub-human by our governments?

I sure as hell feel sub-human, after the NSA/AT&T tried to man-in-the-middle my encrypted TextSecure messages. After the man-in-the-middle attempt failed, I was then sent a web browser spyware update so they could read my private communications anyway.

Law-abiding citizen here. No reason to tap my phone. Only reason to tap my phone is because I'm considered sub-human. With no rights to private communications.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2013 @ 7:29pm

Re: keystrokes
"Authorities also want records of call logs, texts, keystrokes and other data..."

Is that why touchscreens are so popular now?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Postulator (profile), 24 Sep 2013 @ 1:34am

The joys of democracy.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Alison, 24 Sep 2013 @ 2:14am

Re: Re:
"Polite" is the polite word for it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DannyB (profile), 24 Sep 2013 @ 6:50am

Re: Re: Something else to think about
from TFA...
> Authorities also want records of call logs, texts, keystrokes and other data

At least for keystrokes and logs, the easiest and maybe only way to get it is to compromise the device. Have a software agent (or "service") running in the device that communicates with the telco mother ship. Most telcos put their own non-removable apps into devices anyway. So it's not a big deal to imagine that some level of compromise exists within the device.

But you're right, it doesn't necessarily mean that the OEM had to put it there. The telco probably could do it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]