Justice committee  I defer to my colleague who has more intimate knowledge of prevention efforts.

Justice committee  That's correct, depending on the type of information we're seeking. If it is just looking for the hop between networks—we rely on other new provisions in here—without any personal information, just the communication between different networks, that could be at the “reasonable grounds to suspect” level.

Justice committee  The only item I would add is that given the Internet, the location could be anywhere globally, individuals may take on a persona whereby they portray themselves as a 14-year-old, they start a relationship, they get each other to exchange intimate images, then it turns out to be a predator who is now extorting more graphic images and threatening to post those images on Facebook to all their friends if they don't comply with the demands of the predator.

Justice committee  I would just echo the views of Chief Chu that the provision already exists in the Criminal Code. My only commentary is that, and I'm not speaking specifically to this issue, the Canadian policing model is developed on the notion of the police are the community and the community are the police.

Justice committee  I would just add that the threshold of reasonable grounds to suspect is not unfamiliar to the Criminal Code. In fact existing provisions in the Criminal Code already have that threshold. But other provisions, because they're more intrusive, have “reasonable grounds to believe” threshold.

Justice committee  The threshold, as proposed in the legislation here, is reasonable grounds to suspect.

Justice committee  The police would have to identify the leads on the investigation. We actually have to set out what we know about the complaint, about the potential criminal violation, as well as any information we have that convinces a judge that we have reason to suspect that this telecommunication service provider may have hosted a transmission that was involved in a criminal activity.

Justice committee  The new provisions would allow for new tools that would allow the production of communications trace.

Justice committee  No, it would be proposed section 487.015, that is, the communication trace production order. A communication trace production order implicates historical information in a situation where the originating service provider may not be known. So in some recent investigations when there's been an exfiltration of data—let's say someone stealing credentials—we're able to identify where that came from.

Justice committee  Precisely. That is one tool now being offered under this new legislation. The other is production of transmission data, which is proposed section 487.016—again, historical. In this case the service provider is known. We can go back to a computer. Let's say there was an attack and we know the service provider.

Justice committee  The transmission data is very precise. It contains no content on transmissions. It does not reveal substance, the meaning, or the purpose of the communication. It more or less identifies a type direction data—the date, duration, and so forth. So it's actually similar to phone call data today.

Justice committee  All of these provisions in Bill C-13 require prior judicial authorization. There are no warrantless access provisions in this bill.

Justice committee  Thank you for the opportunity. Well, I could touch on a couple of components that will talk about what Bill C-13 will do in modernizing investigative tools. First of all, in my opening remarks I spoke about preservation. Today we are completely reliant upon the voluntary cooperation of entities when it comes to the preservation of data.

Justice committee  Please allow me to answer in English. For cyberbullying, a number of existing Criminal Code offences potentially apply, including criminal harassment, uttering threats, mischief in relation to data. In addition to a new offence of publication of intimate images without consent, Bill C-13 also amends other provisions to modernize them, provisions, such as section 342.1, when it talks about “imports, obtains for use, distributes, or makes” available—for instance, the unauthorized use of a computer.

Justice committee  Mr. Chair, and hon. members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide an overview of the work being done by the RCMP to combat cybercrime, including cyberbullying. I am Assistant Commissioner Joe Oliver and I am responsible for overseeing the RCMP's Technical Operations Directorate.