A directive from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) requires that all federal institutions carry out what it calls a privacy impact assessment (PIA) prior to any activity that involves the collection or handling of personal information, with the goal of identifying privacy risks and ways of mitigating or eliminating them.

According to the directive, which took effect in 2002 and was revised in 2010, federal departments must then provide a copy of their PIA to the TBS and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

Radio-Canada asked each of the federal institutions using the spyware if they had first conducted privacy impact assessments. According to their written responses, none did. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans said it intends to do so.

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    Spyware normally associated with the intelligence world is being used by 13 federal departments and agencies, according to contracts obtained under access to information legislation and shared with Radio-Canada.

    Evan Light, associate professor of communications at York University’s Glendon campus in Toronto and an expert in privacy and surveillance technology, said he’s shocked by the widespread use of such spyware within the federal government.

    Some departments said a PIA wasn’t necessary because they had already obtained judicial authorizations such as search warrants, which impose strict conditions on the seizure of electronic devices.

    “When these tools are new, very powerful and potentially intrusive, even in a system where there are judicial controls, it is important to assess the impacts on privacy,” Dufresne told a parliamentary committee looking into the use of spyware by the RCMP last year.

    They say data is only extracted from government-issued devices in accordance with internal protocols that govern the collection and storage of personal information to ensure its protection.

    But the TBS confirmed to Radio-Canada that its directive on PIAs also applies to such cases, adding the government  “takes seriously the privacy rights of Canadians, including its employees.”

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