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The Conservative government revealed legislation on Tuesday that would increase online surveillance of citizens, as critics and privacy experts argued the bill would unjustly infringe upon the rights of Canadians and act as a magnet for data-hungry hackers.

“This is going to be like the Fort Knox of information that the hackers and the real bad guys will want to go after. This is going to be a gold mine,” said Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian.

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“The government will say that they can protect the data, and they can encrypt it. Are you kidding me? The bad guys are always one step ahead.”

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Bill C-30, tabled as The Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act in the House of Commons on Tuesday, will require telecommunications companies to give police customers’ information without a court order.

This provision, contained in a previous bill that died when the federal election was called last year, resulted in a sustained campaign by the federal and provincial commissioners to get “warrantless access” to subscriber info scrapped from the bill before the Conservatives re-introduced it.