This New App Helps Canadians Find Out what their ISPs Store About Them

Ever since the monumental trove of Edward Snowden leaks exposed us to ubiquitous government surveillance programs by agencies like the NSA and CSEC, you may have been wondering just what kind of dirt the authorities and your ISP have on your digital habits. For those of us in Canada, finding an answer just got a whole lot easier.

Today marks the launch of a new Access My Info tool developed by the Digital Stewardship Initiative and hosted by digital rights group OpenMedia.ca, making filing a legal PIPEDA request to your ISP or phone company, a click of the mouse away. In short, you’ll be able to find out what kind of data your service provider is tracking and storing about you and if they've been sharing it with anyone.

As we browse webMD on the internet at home or walk around making inane phone calls in the Starbucks lineup, we’re leaving a digital trail of breadcrumbs, many of which are vacuumed up by the companies we pay a monthly bill to. And Canadians barely know anything about that information their service providers gather and store about them.

This is where the tool comes in, offering a quick and secure step-by-step PDF generator filling out the PIPEDA request form for us without the hassle of a lawyer. Once the user has created their PDF, it’s ready to be sent via mail or email to their service provider.

This matters because we know that Canadian authorities like the police and border guards have been making millions of warrantless information requests to telecom companies over the past few years.

To find out what people could expect to learn by using the Access My Info tool, I spoke to one of the main people behind it: Chris Parsons, a post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab.

Happy to announce the release of the ‘Access My Info’ tool, designed to let Cnds understand what your telco collects https://t.co/ard8p7pD9Q

— caparsons (@caparsons) June 16, 2014

“The privacy tool should let individuals know what information is being collected, and what’s being stored,” he said. “Additionally, telecoms’ responses should be informative if somebody wants to ask ‘have you exposed my information to government or another entity.”

Parsons and the team plan to crowdsource the replies that telecoms provide to users to gain a much better understanding of just what’s being held onto by service providers. Presently, it’s not exactly clear if ISPs track the sites we visit, or how long our mobile phone texts are stored.

Will the tool let users know if their data has been handed over to the police without a warrant? “Maybe,” said Parsons. “Companies would have to ask police before letting us know, so as not to jeopardize any ongoing investigations.” The same goes for finding out which agencies have had access to our information.

In any case, Parsons said, finding out what information could potentially be shared with authorities is the first giant step towards an informed discussion about privacy in Canada.

“This is our information, and we have a right to understand how it’s being managed. It’s not clear from the companies how they’re doing it. They don’t tell us,” he told me.

Parsons made it clear that the way the Access My Info tool works is very simple. It’s really just using existing legal powers available to citizens and bringing them into the digital world. The Citizen Lab had already released a template letter for doing the same thing, but the tool makes it even easier auto-fill request forms.

Moreover, Access My Info is based on an open platform. As a result, it can be reconfigured to send the same kinds of legal requests for information to all kinds of companies: credit card companies, banks, stores, or even car companies.

Parsons pointed to the example of OnStar, General Motors’ in-car service. Because it tracks the car’s location and other data, OnStar has proved a valuable resource for law enforcement. Thanks to this new tool, Canadians could soon be petitioning GM to find out how long their location data is stored.

The tool has arrived at a great time to contribute to a growing public conversation about our privacy rights in the digital era. A recent Supreme Court ruling found that Canadians have a right to online privacy, clearly rebuking the Conservative government’s two bills that would have expanded warrantless surveillance powers for a range of government authorities. Both bills will very likely have to go back to the drawing board.

As we become aware of just how much data is being collected and stored about us, it’s worth noting that the recent Supreme Court decision is not a panacea. Canada’s CSEC spies still operate with a laughably small amount of oversight, and the government’s tone-deaf response to the roar of legitimate criticism over bills C-13 and S-4 suggests they’re not all that interested in balancing our basic rights and our security. Thankfully, civil society is stepping up and delivering the tools necessary to protect our privacy.

Christopher Malmo is a donor relations coordinator at OpenMedia.ca. Follow him on Twitter: @chrismalmo