Feds Criticized for Not Spying Enough

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Feds Criticized for Not Spying Enough

Postby jon » Thu Nov 28, 2013 2:19 pm

Federal government losing data that should be available to public, watchdog warns
By Jason Fekete, Postmedia News
November 28, 2013 12:10 PM

OTTAWA – The Conservative government is impeding public access to important information contained in text messages from federal employees because departments and ministries generally refuse to save the instant messaging increasingly used by staff, the information commissioner warns in a new report.

The use of instant messaging on government-issued wireless devices to conduct federal business is putting the right of access to information at an “unacceptable risk,” Federal Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault says in a report released Thursday.

Legault examined whether government communications via BlackBerry PIN-to-PIN and SMS text messages – increasingly used by ministers’ offices and departments – were being properly preserved so the information could be retrieved by the public using the federal Access to Information Act.

The number of complaints to her office about missing records has increased substantially in the last two years, to more than 400 in 2012-13, she says.

Legault’s investigation into the use of wireless devices and instant messaging in 11 federal departments and agencies found there is a “real risk” that information contained in the instant messages, which should be accessible by requesters, is being “irremediably deleted or lost.”

Moreover, no valid reason was provided to her office to justify the risk of losing the information, and the Conservative government’s own guidelines are only likely to worsen the situation and contribute to more important information being lost, she says in the report.

“Unless instant messages are actively saved, they will be automatically deleted from wireless devices after a short period and no longer exist or be recoverable by the time my office receives a complaint. For all practical purposes, this negates my ability to investigate the very existence of these records,” Legault says in her report.

“Proposed Treasury Board Secretariat policies to address the use of new wireless technology and instant messaging will likely exacerbate the risk that government information, one of our national resources, will be lost.”

Instant messages used by federal employees are usually automatically deleted from wireless devices after 30 days, and those messages generally aren’t recoverable once they’ve been deleted.

However, Treasury Board’s proposed policy for email management allows for instant messages to be auto-deleted after only three days — instead of the current 30 days — and for the messages not to be automatically backed up on a central server, the report says.

The government’s draft protocol also says any instant message that does not have “business value” is considered transitory and can be deleted at any time — which would breach the public’s legislated right to access all records, she says.

With most government institutions not automatically backing up the instant messages, the information would be unavailable in access-to-information requests.

Treasury Board President Tony Clement, in a letter responding to the information commissioner’s recommendations, said the Conservative government is committed to openness and transparency, noting it has received and responded to more access-to-information requests than any previous government (more than 43,000 in 2011-12).

“Non-email text-based messaging services such as PIN-to-PIN are a means of informal communication that are inherently transitory in nature,” Clement says in his response.

“I nevertheless acknowledge that non-transitory records of business value, which are the exception in non-email text-based messaging, must be preserved, for example by being forwarded into the email system.”

Access to instant messages sent and received by ministers’ offices is at particular risk, Legault says. Under current policies, ministers’ offices are generally the last to be asked for records as part of an access request, likely after instant messages have been auto-deleted.

Legault says Clement has rejected her recommendation that Treasury Board implement a government-wide policy instructing federal institutions to disable instant messaging, including PIN-to-PIN communication on all government-issued wireless devices, except for when a series of specific conditions are met.

Instead, Clement and the Treasury Board Secretariat insist that an institution must have “reasonable grounds to believe, based on credible evidence” that records exist in a ministerial office before a search of the instant messaging will be conducted, she says.

Legault’s review of 11 government institutions found that “with few exceptions,” the instant messages – unlike emails – were not automatically stored on a corporate email server, even though it was possible for government departments and agencies to do this.

There were 98,000 BlackBerrys issued to government institutions as of August 2013, the commissioner notes, with most of them having instant messaging enabled, including communications via BlackBerry PIN. The federal privacy commissioner and Communications Security Establishment Canada, an ultra-secret spy agency, have previously highlighted security vulnerabilities associated with instant messaging, the report adds.

The commissioner says her findings further demonstrate the need to amend the federal Access to Information Act to include a legal duty to document policy decisions made by federal government officials — with sanctions for non-compliance.

The legislative changes would ensure that records are created on important public policy decisions and preserved for access-to-information purposes, she says.
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jon
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Re: Feds Criticized for Not Spying Enough

Postby jon » Thu Nov 28, 2013 2:21 pm

Quite an about face from the normal criticism that the government is capturing too much electronic information on its citizens and employees.
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Re: Feds Criticized for Not Spying Enough

Postby PMC » Thu Nov 28, 2013 6:34 pm

98,000 Blackberry's at $80 per month equals a tab 7,840,000. That is seven million, eight hundred and forty thousand dollars per month.

If the fee hits a $100 a month, add 20% more.

There is no back up storage for all these message... I don't believe the government is getting their tax dollar worth.

Somebody ask why ? :bag:
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