Canada's ultra-secret eavesdropping agency said Thursday it has stopped sharing intelligence with international partners after revealing it had illegally collected Canadians' metadata in sweeps of foreign communications.
In a report to parliament, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) said the breach was unintentional and had been discovered internally in 2013.
A CSE official blamed a software flaw that resulted in sharing of metadata, used to identify, manage or route communications over networks that could identify Canadians.
The agency said the likelihood of this leading to any abuses was "low."
But as a precaution, the CSE suspended its sharing of metadata with its Five Eyes intelligence partners—Australia, Britain, New Zealand, and the United States—until it finds a fix to the problem.
Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan said he was satisfied that any data that had already been shared with the intelligence alliance before the software glitch was discovered "did not contain names or enough information on its own to identify individuals."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Soybean on Monday February 01 2016, @03:47AM
"did not contain names or enough information on its own to identify individuals."
The key phrase being "on its own," which conveniently sidesteps the primary risk: That when combined with other seemingly innocuous data, like a telephone book, it becomes enough to identify individuals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2016, @12:18PM
Exactly. Came here to say the same thing. The devil is in the details and how do you know a politician is lying to you? His lips are moving...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2016, @05:26AM
Well it's aboooot time they fixed it.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday February 01 2016, @02:00PM
We're still trying to fix things after that whole Y2K sitiation, eh!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2016, @06:37AM
Last October there was a federal election and a change of government. This could just be the new rulers' way of casting an unflattering light on the former rulers.
(Score: 1) by _1156277 on Monday February 01 2016, @06:29AM
How much information was "shared" before we stopped?
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Monday February 01 2016, @08:32PM
all of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2016, @08:06AM
Either these fools are noobs or morons. Or TFA is propaganda to manufacture consent for the end of their sharing program.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2016, @09:56AM
I thought the entire purpose of this "sharing" arrangement is to sidestep the laws about spying on your own citizens. Instead you get a sharing partner to spy on your citizens and you spy on theirs... and "share".
So instead of breaking the spirit of the law they are actually breaking the law.
It's quaint that they don't want to actually break the law...