Rogers changes privacy policy due to customer ‘concern’

Rogers Communications Inc.’s decision to change its privacy policy to require law enforcement agencies to provide a warrant or court order to obtain subscriber information was made partly due to “concern” from customers, said Ken Engelhart, Rogers’ vice-president of regulatory affairs. He said in a phone interview that following a recent Supreme Court decision on the issue and “given the concern that our customers have voiced with respect to us standing up for their personal information, we decided to take the step that we’re taking today.” Rogers announced on its blog Wednesday that it was updating its privacy policy to “require a court order/warrant to provide basic customer information to law enforcement agencies, except in life threatening emergencies.” In June, the Supreme Court released a decision that warrantless requests for subscriber information, as routinely practiced under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), are legal searches and therefore require judicial authorization. Engelhart said Rogers reviewed that decision and has interpreted it as being applicable to all name and address requests. He said the new policy does not apply to requests for information from government agencies, such as the Canada Border Services Agency, which made 18,849 requests for customer information from telecom companies between 2012 and 2013, nearly all of which were fulfilled. Engelhart said Rogers’ new privacy policy does not apply to those agencies because they “can only request information where they have the statutory authority to do so.” “Our legal department examines the statutory basis for their request, and if they have the power under a statute to request the information, we comply with it,” he said. He noted that according to numbers in Rogers’ recent transparency report, in 2013 the company received 174,000 requests, and 74,415 came with a court order or warrant, while 2,556 were from government agencies. “It means that the police will have to get warrants or production orders in a lot more cases,” Engelhart said. He indicated that Rogers will stick with its new policy even if the government’s Bill C-13, which would give immunity to telecommunications companies who provide information voluntarily to authorities, becomes law. “I don’t think Bill C-13 really has any effect one way or another. We did what I thought was the right thing before that legislation was proposed, and we’ll continue to do the right thing now,” he said, adding that while it was “a nice gesture to give us immunity if we comply with the police” it is “not driving our behaviour.” University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist said in an email that the announcement was “good news that should be mirrored by other ISPs.” He said Rogers’ change is “the implementation of” the Supreme Court’s decision and “it should be followed by others.” Jean-Francois Mezei, a Montreal-area telecom consultant with Vaxination Informatique, also said in a phone interview he expects other companies to follow suit. “It’s good that Rogers is first out the door with the PR, and that’s where the win is, but the others will all follow,” he added. He noted that public pressure over privacy and the media coverage it has gotten is “definitely having an impact on these big companies when they consider how to handle these things.” — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca

Rogers changes privacy policy due to customer ‘concern’

News | July 16, 2014

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Rogers changes privacy policy due to customer ‘concern’

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