The ''Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act'' (officially titled Bill C-30, originally titled ''Lawful Access Act'') was a proposed amendment to the

Criminal Code A criminal code (or penal code) is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that migh ...

introduced by the

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

government of

Stephen Harper Stephen Joseph Harper (born April 30, 1959) is a Canadian politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of Canada from 2006 to 2015. Harper is the first and only prime minister to come from the modern-day Conservative Party of Canada, ...

on February 14, 2012, during the

41st Canadian Parliament The 41st Canadian Parliament was in session from June 2, 2011 to August 2, 2015, with the membership of its House of Commons having been determined by the results of the 2011 federal election held on May 2, 2011. Parliament convened on June 2, 2 ...

. The bill would have granted authorities new powers to monitor and track the digital activities of Canadians in real-time, required service providers to log information about their customers and turn it over if requested, and made back door entrances mandatory allowing remote access of individuals' electronic information, each without needing a warrant Documents obtained under the ''

Access to Information Act Access may refer to: Companies and organizations * ACCESS (Australia), an Australian youth network * Access (credit card), a former credit card in the United Kingdom * Access Co., a Japanese software company * Access Healthcare, an Indian BPO se ...

'' show that the government desired to use the expanded powers in cases not involving criminality. The bill did not mention children, or internet predators, other than in its title; critics claimed the "feel-good name" was unrelated to the content of the bill, and chosen simply to "sell legislation to the public". Critics claimed that authorities would likely use the powers to harass peaceful protestors and activists. The bill was widely opposed within Canada, particularly after Public Safety Minister

Vic Toews Victor Toews (; born September 10, 1952) is a Paraguayan-Canadian politician and jurist. Toews is a judge of the Court of King's Bench of Manitoba. He represented Provencher in the House of Commons of Canada from 2000 until his resignation on Ju ...

told an opposition MP that he could "either stand with us or with the child pornographers" during a debate. The government ultimately withdrew the bill in 2013, citing that opposition. Similar legislation had been unsuccessfully proposed in the past, by both the Liberal and Conservative parties in Canada, and mirrored legislation introduced in other countries. This bill, however, was re-introduced under the name Bill C-13 (short titled ''

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act The ''Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act'' (S.C. 2014, c. 31) was introduced by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper on November 20, 2013, during the 41st Parliament, and received royal assent on December 9, 2014. Commonly known ...

'') by Stephen Harper's Conservative government on November 20, 2013 and it passed through all legislative stages to receive royal assent on December 9, 2014.

History of bill

There had been multiple attempts to introduce "lawful access" legislation, allowing police to avoid the necessity of a warrant to obtain information, since 1999 when the

Liberal Party of Canada The Liberal Party of Canada (french: Parti libéral du Canada, region=CA) is a federal political party in Canada. The party espouses the principles of liberalism,McCall, Christina; Stephen Clarkson"Liberal Party". ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' ...

first proposed it. However, none of them have been successfully passed. Bill C-30 largely mirrored the unsuccessful attempts by the Conservatives to table C-50, C-51 and C-52 that were abandoned upon the dissolution of Parliament for the 2011 federal election. NDP MPs

Anne Minh-Thu Quach Anne Minh-Thu Quach (born August 14, 1982) is a Canadian politician who represented the electoral district of Salaberry—Suroît in the House of Commons of Canada from 2011Carol Hughes have criticised the Liberal party given their previous support for near-identical legislation in the past. The

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and ''Canadian Lawyer'' magazine have suggested that such proposals may violate the

Constitution of Canada The Constitution of Canada (french: Constitution du Canada) is the supreme law in Canada. It outlines Canada's system of government and the civil and human rights of those who are citizens of Canada and non-citizens in Canada. Its contents a ...

, and be challenged before the

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

unreasonable search and seizure The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. It prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. In addition, it sets requirements for issuing warrants: warrants must be issued by a judge or ...

of digital information. In 2007, Toews' predecessor

Stockwell Day Stockwell Burt Day Jr. (born August 16, 1950) is a Canadian former politician who led the Canadian Alliance from 2000 to 2001, and a member of the Conservative Party of Canada. A provincial cabinet minister from Alberta, Day served as minister ...

stated that "we have not and we will not be proposing legislation to grant police the powers to get information from internet providers without a warrant". Toews has dismissed the comment, and noted that the requirement for court oversight of police was "an additional burden on the criminal justice system." On February 14, 2012 Toews formally tabled the "Bill C-30: ''Lawful Access Act''", but withdrew the bill an hour later and resubmit it with a "last minute change", the title "Bill C-30: ''Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act''" instead.

Content of bill

The bill would have allowed authorities to demand access to subscriber information from both

ISP An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

s and telephone providers without needing to present a warrant - and would have required telecommunications providers to ensure that there was a back door entrance to allow all communications to be intercepted when desired. The bill would not only have granted these powers to police agencies but also to the

Canadian Security Intelligence Service The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS, ; french: Service canadien du renseignement de sécurité, ''SCRS'') is Canada's primary national intelligence agency. It is responsible for collecting, analysing, reporting and disseminating int ...

and

Competition Bureau The Competition Bureau (french: Bureau de la concurrence) is the competition regulator in Canada. It is an independent Canadian law enforcement agency that ensures that markets operate in a competitive, innovative manner. Headed by the Comm ...

officials, as well as anybody "appointed" by the Minister of Public Safety to carry out such actions. The bill would also have allowed any of these persons to make copies of the data taken from citizens' digital devices, without oversight or a right of appeal. The bill would have prohibited ISPs from answering affirmatively if a customer asked them whether authorities had been searching their data. The bill would have increased the number of actions that can be legally carried out by police officers without a warrant. In the current Criminal Code, section 487.11 allows a police officer to "exercise any of the powers described in subsection 487(1) or 492.1(1) without a warrant". In Bill C-30, the section was amended to include "exercise any of the powers described in section 487, 492.1 or 492.2 without a warrant". Section 487 of the Criminal Code was left unchanged by Bill C-30; ts subsection 487(2.1) allows a police officer to search a building and "use any computer system at the building or place to search any data contained in or available to the computer system", among other things. Section 492.1 was to be slightly amended by Bill C-30 to allow a police officer to obtain location tracking data by means of a tracking device and "install, activate, use, maintain, monitor and remove the tracking device, including covertly". Section 492.2 was also to be amended by Bill C-30 to allow a police officer to obtain transmission data by means of a transmission data recorder and "install, activate, use, maintain, monitor and remove the transmission data recorder, including covertly".C-30Archive
/ref> In Bill C-30, tracking data was defined as "data that relates to the location of a transaction, individual or thing". Transmission data has a more complicated definition, but essentially refers to meta-data that is attached to a message/communication in order to aid in its transmission to its intended destination, such as IP address, phone number, time, duration, size. Section 64 of the bill was a final "catch-all" that says that if the government decided it overlooked any additional abilities it believed it needed to fulfill "generally, for carrying out the purposes and provisions of this act", it could have retroactively add those abilities to the law.

Support and opposition to the bill

Although

led a

majority government A majority government is a government by one or more governing parties that hold an absolute majority of seats in a legislature. This is as opposed to a minority government, where the largest party in a legislature only has a plurality of seats. ...

, all four minority parties, the

NDP NDP may stand for: Computing * Neighbor Discovery Protocol, an Internet protocol * Nortel Discovery Protocol, a layer two Internet protocol, also called SONMP * Nondeterministic programming, a type of computer language Government * National Deve ...

, Liberals,

Bloc Québécois The Bloc Québécois (BQ; , "Québécois people, Quebecer Voting bloc, Bloc") is a list of federal political parties in Canada, federal political party in Canada devoted to Quebec nationalism and the promotion of Quebec sovereignty movement, Que ...

, and

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation ...

were opposed to the lawful access provisions of C-30. In addition, John Williamson (

New Brunswick Southwest New Brunswick Southwest (french: Nouveau-Brunswick-Sud-Ouest; formerly known as Charlotte and St. Croix—Belleisle) is a federal electoral district in New Brunswick, Canada, that has been represented in the House of Commons of Canada since 20 ...

David Tilson David Allan Tilson (born March 19, 1941) is a politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 to 2002, and served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the riding of Duffe ...

( Dufferin—Caledon) and

Rob Anders Robert J. "Rob" Anders (born April 1, 1972) is a Canadian former politician. He represented the riding of Calgary West from 1997 until 2015 and was a founding member of the Conservative Party of Canada. On April 12, 2014, Anders was defeated by ...

(

Calgary West Calgary West was a federal electoral district in Alberta, Canada, that was represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1917 to 1953, and from 1979 to 2015. It was in the western part of the City of Calgary. The electoral district was or ...

) were among the Conservative MPs who opposed the bill. Political criticism from the Liberals, NDP and Greens has suggested it was hypocritical for the Conservatives to introduce the bill, after scrapping both the long-form census and

gun registry A gun registry is a government record of firearms and their owners. Not all jurisdictions require gun registration. United States In the United States, there is currently no national gun registry, but some states, such as Hawaii, have provided the ...

in the name of privacy. The bill was supported by many Canadian police agencies. Supporters of the bill have stated that all Canada's attorneys-general also support the bill, while critics have challenged that as untrue. A coalition of citizens and civil liberties organizations formed the StopSpying.ca coalition in June 2011 to speak out against lawful access. The coalition was led by OpenMedia.ca and considered responsible for leading the public outcry against bill c-30. Without commenting on the morality of the bill, the

Canadian Network Operators Consortium The Competitive Network Operators of Canada (CNOC) (french: Opérateurs de Réseaux Concurrentiels Canadiens (ORCC)) is an organisation of over 30 independent Canadian telecommunications providers. It often lobbies to the CRTC and other regulatory ...

noted that smaller, independent ISPs would likely be unable to afford expensive new equipment to allow authorities real-time monitoring of their customers and may have to discontinue business. The Ministry had estimated that the initial cost of the bill to be $80 Million over four years, and $6.7 Million dollars each year after that. The ISPs claimed the cost could be much higher. According to the CBC, the costs would have either translated as higher telecommunications costs for Canadian consumers, or increased federal taxes to pay for the program.

leader

Elizabeth May Elizabeth Evans May (born June 9, 1954) is a Canadian politician, environmentalist, author, activist, and lawyer who is serving as the leader of the Green Party of Canada since 2022, and previously served as the leader from 2006 to 2019. S ...

dubbed the title

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

, noting that "other than the fact it’s for propaganda purposes, there’s no reason to call it about Internet predators", suggesting that the Conservatives were trying to use the rhetorical ploy of appealing to the sake of children to garner support.

The Province ''The Province'' is a daily newspaper published in tabloid format in British Columbia by Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network, alongside the ''Vancouver Sun'' broadsheet newspaper. Together, they are British Columbia's only ...

suggested a more accurate name might be the "Spying on Every Single Canadian any Time We Feel Like it Act". Opposition had focused on the provisions that would allow law enforcement agencies and government-appointed inspectors to access identifying information from ISPs on demand, without a warrant. Documents leaked online showed the

Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) is a national political lobbying organization for police executives in Canada. It was founded in 1905 as the ''Chief Constables Association of Canada'' and adopted the current name in the early 195 ...

asking members to find examples of cases that would have profited from lawful access, but no cases had been found, leading critics to charge that police were already able to prosecute predators successfully in Canada with existing legislation. The international advocacy group

Reporters Without Borders Reporters Without Borders (RWB; french: Reporters sans frontières; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with the stated aim of safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as found ...

opined the bill went too far, and failed to account for "respect for people’s private lives and the presumption of innocence". Federal deputy privacy commissioner Chantal Bernier argued the proposed powers are too broad: "As the legislation is written now, it could impact any law-abiding Canadian citizen." Media outlets had largely panned the bill's proposals; the

National Post The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper available in several cities in central and western Canada. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network and is published Mondays through Saturdays, with ...

derided the bill as "an electronic prisoner's bracelet on every Canadian", columnist Ivor Tossell of

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

said it presented "real dangers", and the

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part ...

argued that it was the "most grotesque intrusion into our lives". The

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (french: Université d'Ottawa), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ottawa ...

Michael Geist Michael Allen Geist (born July 11, 1968) is a Canadian academic, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa and a member of the Centre for Law, Technology and Society. Geist was educated at the Univers ...

said the legislation intended to build "an extensive online surveillance infrastructure". Meanwhile,

Ann Cavoukian Ann Cavoukian (born October 7, 1952) is the former Information and Privacy Commissioner for the Canadian province of Ontario. Her concept of privacy by design, which takes privacy into account throughout the system engineering process, was expand ...

, the Ontario Privacy Commissioner warned that the collected information would be a "gold mine" for potential

hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...

s. All of the nation's privacy commissioners issued a joint statement condemning the bill. Liberal MP Sean Casey

satirically Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

asked Toews and Nicholson to openly divulge their own web surfing histories. Surveys conducted in February 2012 showed that between 53 and 66% of Canadians opposed the bill being passed.

Similar legislation in other countries

Government officials claimed that similar legislation has been introduced in several other countries already, including the United States, Great Britain and Australia. However, critics have said that other countries should serve as a warning to Canada, noting the many errors and broad overreach of their legislation, with police requesting the private information for mundane tasks such as determining

school district A school district is a special-purpose district that operates local public primary and secondary schools in various nations. North America United States In the U.S, most K–12 public schools function as units of local school districts, wh ...

eligibility. Similar legislation has been drafted in the Philippines despite being met with up to eight petitions filed with the highest court in the Philippines questioning the constitutionality of the legislation. The Filipino legislation is intended, like the Canadian bill, to prevent cybersex, online child pornography, identity theft, and spamming. However, in addition to these crimes, the Filipino bill also makes libel a cybercrime punishable by up to twelve years. It is generally this last issue that has privacy and right’s groups concerned over the legislation. “It violates Filipinos' rights to free expression and it is wholly incompatible with the Philippine government's obligations under international law,” said Brad Adams, Asia director of US-based Human Rights Watch. In Australia, Cybercrime Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 allows telecommunications companies to retain customer traffic data for longer if a customer is suspected in a cybercrime, unlike the proposed Canadian legislation however, this information cannot be handed over to police without a warrant. Like the Canadian bill, the Australian version was met with heavy criticism and a report from the Joint Select Committee on Cyber-Safety of Australia took issue with four main flaws in the Australian legislation and made 13 recommendations, which Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the government will “consider”. The first flaw of the bill according to the Joint Select Committee is that the bill “fails to distinguish between the retention of traffic metadata, such as the time and destination of an online communication, and the contents of that communication.” The second flaw of the bill is that “there is a possibility foreign governments could be given access to data in relation to crimes that in Australia would not be serious enough to warrant an interception, like political crimes”. Thirdly there is a possibility that foreign governments would not assist the investigation into some cases of child exploitation because they are not treated as seriously in some countries. "Many countries, including many European countries, impose a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment for the possession, dissemination, sale or rent of

child sexual abuse material Child pornography (also called CP, child sexual abuse material, CSAM, child porn, or kiddie porn) is pornography that unlawfully exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a chi ...

," the report said, which would not trigger the penalty threshold for a "serious" crime. The final flaw the Joint Select Committee found with the bill is “the potential for data on Australians to be shared with countries "at large", rather than limited to those that have also acceded to the Council of Europe convention or have an existing formal mutual assistance arrangement with Australia.” The

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...

highlighted the fact that the warrantless British system has resulted in police making an average of more than 1,700 queries daily, for personal information about citizens from their telecommunications providers.;

Vic Toews controversy

Public safety minister

, who introduced the bill, had become a lightning rod for criticism after suggesting people had to choose to "either stand with us or with the child pornographers", a remark that was said to be "so far out whack with the standards of polite discourse that it kind of scared upportersoff". NDP MP

Jasbir Sandhu Jasbir Sandhu (born April 21, 1966) is a former Canadian politician. He was a Member of Parliament in the 41st Parliament. He was elected to the House of Commons in the 2011 federal election and represented the electoral district of Surrey ...

commented that "We are often warned that rights and freedoms are not permanent, that we only keep them if we stand up and fight for them. However, when estand up and fight to protect these rights .. we are accused of being sympathetic to child pornographers". Toews drew additional criticism after admitting that he had not entirely read the legislation that he put forward. NDP MP

Charlie Angus Charles Joseph Angus (born November 14, 1962) is a Canadian author, journalist, broadcaster, musician and politician. A member of the New Democratic Party (NDP), Angus has been the federal Member of Parliament for the riding of Timmins—Jame ...

went so far as to ask "How can Canadians trust a minister who cannot even read his own legislation?". As a consequence, Toews had become a target of

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

protests against the bill, including a

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

campaign to inform him of Canadians' everyday mundane activities in an ironic bid to highlight their perceived loss of privacy if the bill should pass. Another Twitter user retrieved a copy of Toews' 2008 divorce particulars from the local Winnipeg courthouse and began spreading the contained information, which included details about his extramarital affairs with his family babysitter and a young Conservative staffer, the latter producing a child, as well as his spending habits, over the internet as retaliation to highlight the lack of privacy Toews' bill would afford Canadians. It was revealed that the

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...

associated with the account originated within the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

Minister of Foreign Affairs A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations. The formal title of the top official varies between cou ...

John Baird suggested the account was a creation of the NDP playing a "dirty, sleazy, Internet game". and the account was quickly shut down, although later determined to belong to a Liberal staffer named Adam Carroll. The

Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; french: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; french: GRC, label=none), commonly known in English as the Mounties (and colloquially in French as ) is the federal police, federal and national police service of ...

stated that Toews had referred them to online threats, and that they were "pondering" an investigation, after the

Anonymous Anonymous may refer to: * Anonymity, the state of an individual's identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown ** Anonymous work, a work of art or literature that has an unnamed or unknown creator or author * Anonym ...

hacker collective stated that it would be launching "Operation White North", and threatened to reveal further details from Toews' private life if the bill were not withdrawn, noting they "will not allow a politician who allows his citizens no secrets to have any secrets of his own." Anonymous released the name of Vic Toews' mistress in a release on YouTube. Bill C-30 was also one of the targets of the new initiative by Anonymous called "Operation Kill Billz"

Progression of bill

As a result of the opposition to the bill, the government referred it back to the House Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for possible amendment before introducing it for

Second Reading A reading of a bill is a stage of debate on the bill held by a general body of a legislature. In the Westminster system, developed in the United Kingdom, there are generally three readings of a bill as it passes through the stages of becoming, ...

. The bill was quietly shelved during the summer of 2012. Citing public opposition, the government announced in February 2013 that the legislation had been withdrawn. Nicholson stated that the government had "listened to the concerns of Canadians who have been very clear on this and responding to that". He added, “We will not be proceeding with Bill C-30. And any attempts to modernize the criminal code will not contain …warrantless mandatory disclosure of basic subscriber information or the requirement for telecommunications service providers to build intercept capability within their systems.” Bill C-55, which was originally part of the original Internet surveillance legislation, is all that remains of the contentious Bill C-30. Bill C-55 is needed to bring Canada’s emergency wiretapping powers into conformity with a 2012 Supreme Court decision that struck down a 20-year-old law on the grounds that it did not require police to inform those who had been wiretapped after the fact or provide for any other oversight of the police power. Thus on account of this bill, any persons subject to government surveillance or wiretapping in Canada must legally be informed of the surveillance after the fact.

References

{{Reflist, 30em 41st Canadian Parliament Surveillance scandals Internet privacy legislation Canadian federal legislation Internet in Canada Computing legislation 2012 in Canadian law