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National Defence committee  Thank you. I'll mention another bill here. Currently the government is looking at the artificial intelligence and data act. I agree with Mr. de Boer that we need to be looking at innovative solutions, including AI, but we also need to make sure we have regulations in place. There are wide concerns in both the private sector and civil society.

March 31st, 2023Committee meeting

Tim McSorley

National Defence committee  Yes. I would just share that I think we need a centralized office to engage with cybersecurity. One of the questions we have around Bill C-26 is that it's not clear whether this would fall under existing national security review bodies. Having an agency tasked with not only ensuring cybersecurity is handled properly but also that it's reviewed and accountable, and that there's transparency around it, would be important as well.

March 31st, 2023Committee meeting

Tim McSorley

National Defence committee  Thank you very much for the question. It isn't just a concern among civil liberties and civil society groups but across many sectors in Canada that there needs to be a trust developed. There needs to be openness and transparency to the degree that we understand what Canadian agencies, including the CSE, are engaging in when they are engaging in protecting Canada's cybersecurity, engaging in active and defensive cyber-operations and engaging in signals intelligence.

March 31st, 2023Committee meeting

Tim McSorley

National Defence committee  One of the reasons I have the access to information that I have today is the BC Civil Liberties Association lawsuit that resulted in disclosure. They then had to fight to publicly share the information they obtained, and only recently were they able to publish it publicly. I guess what ties all of that together is that the information isn't coming from the CSE itself.

March 31st, 2023Committee meeting

Tim McSorley

National Defence committee  Yes, definitely. One of the things we've seen in terms of both the intelligence commissioner and NSIRA is that they're not receiving the information they require in order to do their review work and, in the case of the intelligence commissioner, their oversight work. We think there need to be amendments made to the CSE Act that make authorizations for their various activities contingent on providing adequate and appropriate information to the intelligence commissioner, as well as examining the idea of providing the intelligence commissioner with a power to make binding amendments to the authorizations that the CSE is seeking—

March 31st, 2023Committee meeting

Tim McSorley

National Defence committee  Thank you very much for that question. First, it's clear, as you said, that there is need for collaboration among national security agencies. Some of that does require the sharing of information. However, as you pointed out, what we have seen is that there are deep concerns about how some of that information is shared and the impact it can have.

March 31st, 2023Committee meeting

Tim McSorley

National Defence committee  Thank you very much for your question. There are multiple ways in which we collect that kind of information. For some of it, before the creation of the intelligence commissioner, there was the CSE commissioner, who initiated review, and it's the independent review and oversight bodies that often have access to this information and will share that information, although still redacted in a way that protects national security when there are concerns.

March 31st, 2023Committee meeting

Tim McSorley

National Defence committee  I'll just quickly say no. Several of the problems I raised were actually enshrined in Bill C-59, the creation of the CSE act. One of the things we think needs to be done is to bolster the powers of both NSIRA and the intelligence commissioner to be able to review these kinds of activities and be able to discuss their findings publicly.

March 31st, 2023Committee meeting

Tim McSorley

National Defence committee  I think a lot is riding on that word “target” and what you were speaking about in terms of what the CSE presented to the committee. It's true that the CSE, through its mandate and through the CSE Act, cannot target Canadians, but in collecting signals intelligence and in carrying out their work, including on cybersecurity and protecting cyber-infrastructure, as I mentioned, they collect all kinds of information, and then they sift through it.

March 31st, 2023Committee meeting

Tim McSorley

National Defence committee  Just very briefly, it's clear that there's a role for the federal government in supporting private companies in increasing their cybersecurity and protecting national security. We think that one thing that's key to this is that there's trust and transparency around that process so that private companies can trust what the government is going to be doing when they provide that support.

March 31st, 2023Committee meeting

Tim McSorley

National Defence committee  Thank you very much, Chair, for the opportunity to speak to the committee today. The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group is a Canadian coalition that serves as a watchdog around national security, anti-terrorism and civil liberties in Canada. We have long-standing experience examining Canadian work regarding surveillance and cyber-activities, including the work of the Communications Security Establishment.

March 31st, 2023Committee meeting

Tim McSorley

Information & Ethics committee  While it's true that there are rules in place to minimize mass surveillance from those agencies, as was mentioned, in recent draft guidance to law enforcement agencies, the Privacy Commissioner raised the concern that because the laws around this are currently a patchwork, there are concerns that there are loopholes and that there will be ways for federal agencies and law enforcement agencies to engage in mass surveillance that otherwise would be considered unlawful.

March 24th, 2022Committee meeting

Tim McSorley

Information & Ethics committee  First of all, we think we need a broader consultation to decide what are no-go zones. As we've said, we believe a clear part of that no-go zone would be on the use of facial recognition for mass surveillance. Beyond that, there needs to be oversight in terms of ensuring that as law enforcement and intelligence agencies adopt new technology, they are reviewed beforehand, before they are implemented, in order to ensure that they meet the right standards that are set by Canada's privacy legislation.

March 24th, 2022Committee meeting

Tim McSorley

Information & Ethics committee  We had a follow-up conversation with the director of policy in the minister's office, but it was more of a listening session rather than clearly stating what the minister's actions would be. The only new information we obtained was clarification that CBSA was not using real-time facial recognition at that moment.

March 24th, 2022Committee meeting

Tim McSorley

Information & Ethics committee  That's a good question. We know that the RCMP committed to making improvements to its policies, even though they did reject the overall finding that they're responsible for the lawfulness of third party technology. We haven't seen anything released publicly about that yet, and in fact, it speaks to one of the problems we see right now that, in theory, federal agencies need to undertake privacy impact assessments before new technology or new privacy-impactful projects are undertaken, but those assessments are often not done at all.

March 24th, 2022Committee meeting

Tim McSorley