Evidence of meeting #101 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was use.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Would you have worked with them at the time when they were surveilling Black Lives Matter, back in 2021?
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Again, when I talk about trust and the importance for Canadians watching to know the differences in who's mandated to do what, I find it quite shocking, quite frankly, that the Canadian military had a file on BLM, that they said they were surveilling local context for operations in Canada and that in the file they had deemed them hostile foreign actors.
As somebody who has been to many of those rallies and involved in that work, I can't help but think that maybe, at some point, I was surveilled in that way. If you're familiar with their operations, what technology would they have used to track the movements of a protest organization or protests across the country?
BGen Dave Yarker
I'm afraid that's beyond my remit. I don't know the answer to your question.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Is there AI technology that's used, to your knowledge, to surveil online social media activity, or is that done manually through the joint operations command?
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Is there any context in which your department—and Ms. Martel, feel free to jump in on this—would use open-source information collection for social media usages by the members of the Department of National Defence?
BGen Dave Yarker
Certainly, I would say that, within the context of cyber-defence, we would not do that. Again, when it comes to cyber-defence and the kinds of tools we're talking about here today, those tools and the use of them are focused on ensuring that we're secure.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
The question is outside of your scope. I'll take that.
As I mentioned when you came in, part of our work is being at the end of the line of questioning and picking up on things that were said. I'm just making sure that it kind of aligns with my past experiences. I'm still kind of startled by the military's use in that application. If you want to report that back to your superiors to know that's still a question I have here at the privacy and ethics committee, I would love to have an answer to that.
In this work, I know that we've tried to create a distinction between an on-device information collection tool, spyware, versus this kind of forensic use. Are there also on-device applications that you use in the Department of National Defence?
BGen Dave Yarker
Some of these tools will look at individual and point devices. That's sort of the purpose of the tool. However, if I understand the thrust of your question, these are things that we use to investigate security incidents. We don't use them for other purposes.
NDP
BGen Dave Yarker
No. We definitely, across the network security infrastructure, have monitoring tools that monitor for malicious activity and the like.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I'll get more specific.
Are you familiar with the technology called Pegasus?
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Is there anything like Pegasus—not the brand name but the application of it?
BGen Dave Yarker
Within cybersecurity and cyber-defence, we do not use those kinds of technologies, I believe, in the sense that you're asking.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Would you have knowledge of its being used in the Department of National Defence?
BGen Dave Yarker
I don't have any knowledge of its being used in the Department of National Defence.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
That's fair enough. Thank you very much.
Heading down to both of you folks, we're making the distinction again between—and I think it's an important distinction to make—something that's used for forensic, which needs the actual physical device in hand as part of an investigation versus what is deemed to be spyware. I used the reference to Pegasus, but these are things that would be surreptitiously collecting data in real time all the time.
To your knowledge, do you ever use those types of applications within the application of federal devices?
Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer, Department of Natural Resources
We don't.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
What's the rationale then, just one more time for the sake of this committee, for the purchase of this type of forensic device?
Chief Information Officer, Department of Natural Resources
It's to be effective in the event that there's a security issue.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
How often do these security issues come up? Do you have a report in your departmental reporting back that we had 36 of these incidents?
Chief Information Officer, Department of Natural Resources
It's not something I have readily available. For security reasons and our ability as an organization to withstand any potential threat, I would not disclose this readily in a public forum. We do have internal data about this, yes.