CRTC balances public interest and privacy in reaching E911 database decision

At the end of February, the CRTC ordered incumbent telephone companies to provide enhanced 911 (E911) information that would then be used in telephony-based community notification services (Telecom Decision 2007-13) - a decision that should immediately benefit the public.Alain Normand, manager of emergency measures and corporate security for the City of Brampton, and president of the Ontario Association of Emergency Managers (OAEM), says use of the E911 database gives municipalities the ability to more effectively reach residents in the time of an emergency. "Our main concern is that our ability to warn people when we know the situation, when something is happening, is very limited," he tells Network Letter. "In Canada we've been struggling with that for years. We knew that the most accurate source about residents in our communities was really the 911 database," Normand explains. "To be able to use that database and regroup all the people by an area code or postal code and send a message out to all those numbers certainly enhances our capacity to communicate with the public during an emergency." Accessing this resource, however, proved to be a multi-year process. In June 2004 a consortium of cities, counties and municipalities from Ontario, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan filed a Part VII application requesting that authorities responsible for the provision of critical emergency services be permitted to use the E911 database to provide emergency public alerts. A year later the commission initiated a public proceeding to determine whether the use of E911 information, and under what circumstances, was in the public interest. While all parties who intervened felt the use of the E911 database would benefit the general public, appropriate safeguards would need to be imposed to protect privacy. In issuing its decision the commission separated the proceeding into six key issues surrounding community notification services that it had to make determinations on. Public Interest: The municipalities and ILECs both indicated that current community notification services (CNS), which relied on publicly available information sources, were limited and not comprehensive. As well, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada supported enhanced CNS from a public safety perspective. The commission concluded that since the ILEC's E911 databases were the most complete source of contact information, their use was in the public interest. Limitations on Circumstances of Use: All parties recommended that only the necessary information from the E911 databases be provided for enhanced CNS use, and the municipalities added that a government authority or designated official identify when enhanced CNS was justified. However, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre suggested the commission itself should define the situations in which enhanced CNS was called for. The CRTC agreed that only telephone numbers and associated addresses be provided from the E911 database and that government authorities or authorized agents should employ enhanced CNS, and added that the service should be "limited to imminent emergency situations." Safeguards: Taking into account the numerous safeguards to protect confidential customer information suggested by the interveners, the commission determined that parties should destroy E911 information obtained for an enhanced CNS alert to ensure it is not reused for used for another purpose. The CRTC also noted that public authorities submit enhanced CNS reports to ILECs, and that ILECs should have the authority to suspend or terminate use of the E911 database in the event of misuse. Consent and Notification Requirements: While the municipalities argued that the interest of public safety trumped the issue of subscriber consent, they did propose that authorities notify citizens about the use of the 911 database for CNS. The Privacy Commissioner concurred, submitting that "privacy should not be viewed as an impediment to public safety." The commission agreed that prior notification of was appropriate and directed all local exchange carriers to provide billing inserts to their respective subscribers. Operational Issues: The municipalities submitted that they were only interested in a CNS model where the ILEC operated as the provider, developed geographic information systems to handle geographic-based phone number requests, and developed an integrated voice response capability to deliver the CNS alerts. The ILECs, however, did not feel they should bear the costs of system upgrades and stated that public alerting solutions were part of a competitive market. The commission sided with the ILECs, determining that "there should be no restriction as to who may operate as a CNS provider."Other issues: The remaining issues the CRTC addressed were cost recovery and limitation of liability. On the former, the commission found that the cost of enhanced CNS should be recovered by the ILECs from the public authority through an explicit tariff rate. On the latter, the CRTC determined that ILECs should not be held liable for implementation decisions made by other parties, but liability for breaches of agreement should be in line with those for manual access to the E911 database. Of course, the lengthy process and decision will be of most value to Canadians when it's put to use. The OAEM's Normand says that in cases of advanced warnings some CNS systems can disseminate messages to around 100,000 people in 15 minutes. Combined with the 911 database, which is updated daily, the system will be that much more effective. "We've been asking for this for a long time," says Normand. " is certainly the most reliable. It may not be 100%, but the percentage of reliability on the addresses and the contact names is very good."

CRTC balances public interest and privacy in reaching E911 database decision

News | March 28, 2007

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