Along with Michael Geist, Gabriella Coleman and Jennifer Stoddart, McKune was profiled as one of several individuals working on defending digital rights in Canada and around the world.

Read the full profile.

The post Senior Researcher Sarah McKune profiled in CJFE publication appeared first on The Citizen Lab.

“When we think of innovation in the global digital economy, most of us think of exciting new social media or apps that empower us to network and create. However, there is another dynamic sector of innovation, one with a more sinister end use: computer network attack, censorship and surveillance — what some are referring to as the market for “digital arms.” It’s a market Canadians need to understand better, as we have some explaining to do.”

Read the full article.

Read the latest Citizen Lab report on FinFisher, You Only Click Twice: FinFisher’s Global Proliferation.

The post Director Ron Deibert and Senior Researcher Sarah McKune Op-Ed on Canadian involvement in Internet censorship and surveillance appeared first on The Citizen Lab.

In a report published by The School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, professor Ron Deibert argues that Canada has potential to be a global leader in cyber security, but this opportunity is being squandered because of the lack of a clear strategy in this area. “Canada should be forging a leading position in global cyberspace governance and security,” Deibert writes. “We certainly stand among those with the most to lose should cyberspace continue its spiral into censorship, securitization, militarization, and crime.”

To read the full report, see here.

The post Director Ron Deibert authors new report on Canada’s role in promoting cyber security appeared first on The Citizen Lab.

The political leader of exiled Tibetans is calling on Canada’s ambassador for religious freedom to investigate religious repression and suicide in his homeland, squeezing the week-old post into a tricky diplomatic position.

Lobsang Sangay, the head of the Central Tibetan Administration (also known as the Tibetan Government in Exile), made his plea while visiting Ottawa this week to seek support for Tibetan autonomy. He argued that growing business connections between Canada and China should not silence Canada’s concern for human rights in Tibet.

His challenge could prove an acid test for the Conservative government’s new Office of Religious Freedom: Any attempt to send such an envoy to China would be bound to cause offence.

Mr. Sangay’s visit comes amid a series of self-immolations in Tibet, where 106 people have set themselves on fire in the past three years to protest Chinese rule, the latest on Monday.

Mr. Sangay wants the Harper government to send its newly created ambassador for religious freedom, Andrew Bennett, to investigate.

“I would really like to see, and request, that the ambassador of religious freedom visit Tibet. Because religious freedom is very much at the core of self-immolation – as well as other issues – in Tibet,” Mr. Sangay said. “And now, the office is established, there’s an ambassador. If he could go to Tibet and investigate the situation, that would be a welcome gesture.”

For the full article, see

The post Call to help Tibetans puts pressure on Canada’s new religion envoy appeared first on The Citizen Lab.

Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson says the controversial Bill C-30, known as the online surveillance or warrantless wiretapping bill, won’t go ahead due to opposition from the public.

The bill, which was known as the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act, was designed to help police combat child pornography. But civil liberties and privacy groups — even the federal privacy commissioner — said the bill violated the rights of Canadians.

Opponents lobbied strenuously against C-30, saying it was an overly broad, “Big Brother” piece of legislation that would strip all Canadians of the right to privacy.

The bill would have required internet service providers to maintain systems to allow police to intercept and track online communications without a warrant.

Canadians rallied against the bill after Public Safety Minister Vic Toews famously told an opposition MP that he could “either stand with us or with the child pornographers.” Those explosive comments outraged many Canadians and helped to galvanize the opposition to C-30.

For the full article, see here.

The post Government killing online surveillance bill appeared first on The Citizen Lab.

Yesterday’s post on the coalition of business lobby groups support for a spyware provision in the Canadian anti-spam law attracted considerable attention, with many shocked at the breadth of the proposal. While the post focused on how the provision could be broadly interpreted to permit spyware to track copyright infringement, block websites, or to stop attempts to access wireless networks without authorization, it did not discuss yet another serious concern involving the jurisdictional scope of the provision. As noted in the post, the lobby groups, led by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Marketing Association, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, have asked the government to create an exception for the express consent requirement on software installation for:

a program that is installed by or on behalf of a person to prevent, detect, investigate, or terminate activities that the person reasonably believes (i) present a risk or threatens the security, privacy, or unauthorized or fraudulent use, of a computer system, telecommunications facility, or network, or (ii) involves the contravention of any law of Canada, of a province or municipality of Canada or of a foreign state;

The last five words of this provision could prove to be the most important, since they permit the installation of computer programs without express consent based on the belief of a contravention of the law of a foreign state. After years of fighting for a made-in-Canada copyright approach, this provision would create the prospect of enforcement of U.S. or other foreign laws through surreptitious installation of computer programs. Beyond copyright law, the same provision could presumably be used to justify Chinese spyware supposedly seeking to prevent violation of Chinese laws (perhaps involving groups targeted by that government).

For the full article, see

The post Canadian business groups on anti-spam jurisdiction: It’s a problem unless it involves our spyware appeared first on The Citizen Lab.

Read the op-ed.

The post Op-ed by Ron Deibert and Sarah McKune on investments into Blue Coat appeared first on The Citizen Lab.

The Honourable David C. Onley, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, will invest all the appointees at a ceremony on Wednesday, February 6 at Queen’s Park.

“The Order of Ontario recognizes extraordinary Ontarians who have made a lasting mark on the province, the country and the world. This group of remarkable citizens has made a difference in the lives of so many people over the course of a lifetime, and I’m proud to invest them with Ontario’s highest honour,” said The Honourable David C. Onley.

Created in 1986, the Order of Ontario, the province’s highest official honour, recognizes the highest level of individual excellence and achievement in any field.

Click here to learn more about this year’s Order of Ontario appointments.

The post Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert named to the Order of Ontario appeared first on The Citizen Lab.

In a world where data now moves effortlessly between computers on the Internet without regard for geographic borders, is the appearance of a website on a computer screen sufficient for a court to claim that a trademark has been used in the country? Is the use of a computer server enough to assert jurisdiction over a non-resident? My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that two recent cross-border cases – one Canadian and one U.S. which both pitted a U.S. company against a Canadian individual – found that it is.

The Canadian case involved a trade-mark dispute over the mark VRBO. Martin Hrdlicka, a Toronto resident, registered the mark in Canada in 2009. Just over a year later, Homeaway.com, a U.S. company that owns the popular VRBO.com site, sought to expunge the trade-mark on the grounds that Hrdlicka was not entitled to register the mark and had no intent to use it.

Homeaway.com’s legal challenge was that the company had no operations in Canada, though many Canadians may have accessed its U.S.-based website. Trade-mark law requires some use of the mark in Canada, yet the “use” in this case was largely confined to the availability of the VRBO website on computer screens.
While the Supreme Court of Canada has emphasized the need for actual use connected to Canada, the Federal Court broke new ground by ruling that “a trade-mark which appears on a computer screen website in Canada, regardless where the information may have originated from or be stored, constitutes for Trade-Marks Act purposes, use and advertising in Canada.”

For the full post, see here.

The post Courts adopt aggressive approach in cross-border Internet jurisdiction cases appeared first on The Citizen Lab.

I’m standing in the lobby of the Westin Nova Scotian in Halifax talking with CTV Atlantic bureau chief Todd Battis. I’m in the belly of the beast. This is the Halifax International Security Forum: what The Atlantic magazine has called “The Davos of international security.” This gathering is the nucleus of some of the world’s most established establishment. Peter MacKay is the host. United States Senator and former Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, leads the American delegation. As delegates file through the lobby, with RCMP, police, and security people everywhere, I suddenly notice that the muzak playing in hotel is Leonard Cohen’s “The Future”.

“When they said, repent, repent; I wondered what they meant.”

Surely this can’t be a coincidence, I think.

For the full article, see here.

The post Halifax International Security Forum: The new international normal appeared first on The Citizen Lab.