Discussions

Canadian privacy rated among best  
Sun Dec 30 2007  
 
By Jill Lawless  
 
Canada, Greece and Romania had the best privacy records of 47 countries surveyed by London-based watchdog Privacy International. Malaysia, Russia and China were ranked worst. Both Britain and the United States fell into the lowest-performing group of "endemic surveillance societies."  
 
"The general trend is that privacy is being extinguished in country after country," said Simon Davies, director of Privacy International. "Even those countries where we expected ongoing strong privacy protection, like Germany and Canada, are sinking into the mire.  
 
Davies cites the CIA's accessing the banking records of Canadians through the SWIFT banking information system, the Canadian no-fly list and the Toronto Transit Commission's installation of security cameras as examples of the erosion of privacy rights.  
 
He also decried the increasing number of programs involving the United States, which he said unfortunately has no federal privacy law.  
 
"What's happening, is that Canadian information, sensitive information, is flowing across the border in increasing volumes," Davies said.  
 
"Frankly, that the sort of situation where government should put pressure on the U.S. government to protect that information legally," he said, "But it's not doing so."  
 
The report came two days after Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart warned in a release that 2008 will be "another challenging one for privacy in Canada."  
 
"Heightened national security concerns, the growing business appetite for personal information and technological advances are all potent - and growing - threats to privacy rights," Stoddart said.  
 
In the U.S., President George W. Bush's administration has come under fire from civil liberties groups for its domestic wiretapping program, which allows monitoring, without a warrant, of international phone calls and e-mails involving people suspected of having terrorist links.  
 
"The last five years has seen a litany of surveillance initiatives," Davies said, adding little has changed since the Democrats took control of Congress a year ago.  
 
Britain was criticized for its plans for national identity cards, a lack of government accountability and the world's largest network of surveillance cameras. Davies said the loss earlier this year of computer disks containing personal information and bank details on 25 million people in Britain highlighted the risks of centralizing information on huge government databases.  
 
The survey considers a range of factors including legal protection of privacy, enforcement, data sharing, the use of biometrics and prevalence of CCTV cameras.  
 
- The Canadian Press