Imagine how you would feel if the government installed cameras in your home that recorded everything you did, then gave police the power to review the footage without a warrant, whenever they want. If that sounds to you like a gross violation of your privacy, you should probably be aware that the federal Liberals are contemplating pretty much exactly that for the digital world. The Trudeau government has launched a review of Bill C-51, the controversial piece of legislation passed under the Harper government and supported by the then-opposition Liberals. But while the public largely expects the review to get rid of some of the more "problematic elements" of Bill C-51 (since that's what the Liberals promised), the review actually looks more like a roadmap to expanding those very same "problematic elements."

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has vowed to remove "problematic elements" of Bill C-51, but his department's survey suggests it's looking at ways of enhancing the bill instead. (Photo: The Canadian Press/Justin Tang) From the Public Safety department's survey on the issue, it's clear what the Liberals want to do, or are at least contemplating: Warrantless access One of the ideas being considered is what has been called "lawful access" -- the policy that law enforcement should be allowed to access information about Internet users without a warrant. It's not clear how much data they would want to be made available without a judge's consent, but at the very minimum, they want basic subscriber info (BSI, as the Public Safety survey confusingly calls it), which means your name, your phone number, your physical address and so on.

Former prime minister Stephen Harper left "lawful access" out of Bill C-51, but the Liberals may be bringing it back. (Photo: The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick) When the "lawful access" idea was being bandied about during the Harper era, it was limited to basic subscriber info, and failed to make it into Bill C-51 on account of public opposition. Supporters argue lawful access is the digital equivalent of looking someone up in a phone book, something police don't need a warrant to do. But whether or not that analogy is correct depends on what you can find when you are given someone's subscriber info. And that brings us to the next, and most problematic, element of these proposals. Data retention The Liberals are also contemplating introducing data retention requirements -- forcing Internet providers to retain a complete record of subscribers' activities online, for some period of time. This is something the U.K. government recently passed into law, with a one-year retention period, despite widespread political opposition. Some tech blogs are comparing the Liberals' plans to the U.K. legislation, suggesting the British law -- derisively called the "Snoopers' Charter" -- is the inspiration for Canada's attempt at the same thing.

Bill C-51 currently allows police or judges to issue "preservation orders" to Internet providers that would require them to hold on to information they have about a subscriber. But under a "data retention" regime, Internet providers would be required to log all information about their subscribers' online activities, and hand those over when requested by the law. Combine that with the "lawful access" proposal, and what you have here is pretty scary. Under "data retention," police would be able to scan all your activity online, and under "lawful access," they would be able to do it whenever they want, without court oversight. This is what I meant by "the digital equivalent of a camera in your home." It's a heck of a lot more than looking someone up in a phone book. Wait, there's more The Public Safety questionnaire places a lot of emphasis on encryption, leading some to speculate online the department may be looking at requiring "backdoors" into encrypted files. This could mean that companies which build encryption software would have to build in a way to hack those encryptions. The argument here is that terrorists, child pornographers and others are encrypting information, making it very difficult (though not impossible) for law enforcement to access the data. But encryption is much more widely used than that -- businesses encrypt their data to keep it from being stolen; messaging services like WhatsApp and BlackBerry Messenger use it to protect the privacy of their users.