UOIT faculty member weighs in on privacy rights in the telecommunications sphere

Dr. Andrea Slane, Associate Professor, Faculty of Social Science and Humanities (FSSH), University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) and Dr. Lisa Austin, Associate Professor, Centre for Innovation and Policy, University of Toronto, recently published an essay in the Globe and Mail, in which they discuss how police and other government agencies are receiving private customer information from Canadian telecommunications providers, simply by asking for it — no warrant necessary.

In the essay, entitled We can’t let phone companies determine our privacy rights, Drs. Slane and Austin explain the "major loophole” that appears to legally allow the warrantless sharing of information relies on the language of subscriber agreements.

"If we have a reasonable expectation of privacy in our customer information, then the state needs a warrant to gain access to it — even if the telecom is willing to provide it,” say Drs. Slane and Austin. “However, when the courts have addressed this issue they have been heavily influenced by the fact that service provider agreements very often include clauses that inform customers that the providers will in fact share information with authorities when requested to do so. Many courts have held that this advance notice undermines a customer’s reasonable expectation of privacy. And if there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, no warrant is required.

The researchers call for more transparency and accountability by establishing legal standards that offer privacy protection. They also argue that there should also be limits on the amount of privacy rights that can be taken away when a customer clicks “I agree” on a service-provider agreement.