Personal data sent to Canadian websites is often routed through the United States where the National Security Agency collects it, according to Andrew Clement, a University of Toronto professor.

The professor is part of the team of University of Toronto and OCAD University students and professors that has created IXmaps , an online interactive tool that lets Canadians to see how their web traffic moves around the Internet.

“People can get a sense of how much of their own traffic gets routed though the U.S.” Clement says.

Once your data leaves Canada it has almost no legal protection, making it susceptible for collection by the NSA, a U.S. intelligence agency that collects, decodes, monitors and analyzes information and data from around the world.

The IXmaps site uses Google Maps to show examples of the routes Canadian web data take.

Someone named Mark in Abbotsford B.C. who called up the Dalhousie University website in Halifax has his data sent via Vancouver to San Jose, Calif. then across the U.S. Midwest through Kansas City before making it’s way back to Canada through a sever in Montreal. Along the way IXmaps flagged five suspected NSA listening posts among those U.S. servers.

The site gets this information from volunteers who contribute their data by installing a program called TrGen. The software reports the routes of the data back to IXmaps.

So far, 321 contributors have sent in 35,873 trace routes

The site also rates the privacy of companies that handle internet data. Internet service providers like Bell, AT&T and Telus are evaluated on their level of transparency and if they follow the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, a Canadian law that protects consumer information online.

“They will be collecting email transactions, financial transactions, [and] hotel reservations.” says Clement, referring to the type of information he thinks the NSA is collecting on Canadians.

He also thinks the government agency isn’t just collecting metadata, but what is inside the emails, reservations and financial transactions.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“They basically want to capture everything,” says Clement.

The site has received development money from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Read more about: