A court dealt has dealt Canada’s spy agency a major blow, declaring it illegally kept data collected during investigations over the past decade and threatening sanctions if it happens again.



Judge Simon Noel of the federal court said the Canadian Security Intelligence Service secretly set up a special data analysis centre in 2006 to help track potential terrorism suspects. The agency stored electronic information from people not linked to particular threats, which is referred to as associated data.

The CSIS director, Michel Coulombe, told a news conference shortly after the ruling that the agency would immediately stop sharing and analysing associated data until it could “assess potential operational and legal impacts”.

Canada belongs to the so-called Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, along with Britain, the United States, Australia and New Zealand.



Judges have previously criticised CSIS for a lack of openness about its operations but Noel’s ruling was particularly uncompromising.



“CSIS has a limited mandate which does not permit the retention of associated data … as it has done so since 2006. Therefore this retention of associated data is illegal,” he said in the judgment.



The reach of Canada’s law enforcement and security agencies has come into sharp focus after a scandal erupted in the province of Quebec over police secretly tracking phone calls of at least seven reporters. The prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said he found the case troubling and had contacted CSIS to make sure the agency was not carrying out similar operations.

Critics said the CSIS ruling reinforced their belief that the agency was largely unaccountable.



David Christopher of OpenMedia, an advocacy group, said: “The fact that CSIS could go 10 years retaining large quantities of our sensitive private information, yet we’re only finding out about this now, and only as a result of a court judgment, is deeply concerning.”

The case came to light in early 2016 after CSIS applied for amendments to the court warrants it needs to launch investigations. At the same time the court learned independently about the data centre and launched an inquiry.

Noel said CSIS broke its duty of candour towards the court by not disclosing the existence of the data analysis centre.

Noting that judges had twice previously concluded the agency improperly obscured details of its operations, Noel suggested CSIS could be charged with contempt of court.

Most Canadian security agencies have small individual review bodies, which OpenMedia and others complain are weak and can only look at old cases.

Oversight is more robust in other nations such as Britain and the United States, where special legislative committees monitor the work of security and intelligence agencies.

Canada’s Liberal government, acting amid global concerns about the reach of security agencies, promised in June to create a similar oversight committee to ensure civil liberties were not infringed.

With Reuters

