Government snooping on social media may breach Privacy Act
Canadian social media users might have some unexpected followers lurking on their Twitter feeds — data-mining agents of the federal government, according to a report from the privacy commissioner.
But while Treasury Board President Tony Clement defended the digital surveillance in question period as fair "in a day and age when Canadians willingly put information about their opinions" online, privacy and legal watchdogs argue that publicly accessible domains such as Facebook and Twitter should be free from state snooping. If not, they say, the practice could violate Canada's privacy laws.
"Certainly it's a breach of the spirit of the Privacy Act," said Avner Levin, director of the Privacy and Cyber Crime Institute at Ryerson University.
The act dictates that government departments can only collect personal information if it "relates directly to an operating program or activity of the institution." It adds that, with some exceptions, government institutions "must inform the individual of the purpose" of collecting their data.
"Our government, as a liberal democracy, has to justify why it's collecting any kind of information [on the public]," Levin said. "In a rule-of-law system, they have to answer for why they would be creating databases like that. What's the point? How are they going to be using it?"
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/government-snooping-on-social-media-may-breach-privacy-act-1.2636905
I don't think Canada can be classed as a "liberal democracy" anymore.