RCMP has yet to turn over info on cellphone spyware program to privacy watchdog
Global News
Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne says he found out about invasive RCMP spyware program through media reports in June, expects briefing from Mounties later this month.
More than a month after the RCMP admitted to using invasive cellphone spyware technology, the national police force has yet to turn over information about the program to Parliament’s privacy watchdog.
Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne told the House of Commons’ ethics committee that he found out about the RCMP’s “Covert Access and Intercept Team” and its use of cellphone spyware through media reports in late June.
The RCMP admitted in June that it had deployed invasive cellphone hacking techniques in 10 separate investigations between 2018 and 2020. The revelations came in response to a parliamentary documents request by a Conservative MP, and were first reported by Politico.
The force uses what it calls “on-device investigative tools,” or ODITs, that give the Mounties the ability to obtain “covert and remote” access to target cellphones or other electronic devices. Once covertly installed, these tools allow the RCMP to collect data such as text messages, audio recordings, photos, calendars, financial records – and even sounds picked up by the device’s microphones or images observed by cellphone cameras.
Dufresne told the committee the RCMP conducted a “privacy impact assessment” on the use of spyware in 2021 – three years after the force says it deployed the hacking tools in an investigation.
“Given this new technology, are the safeguards sufficient? Or do we have recommendations to make it safer from a privacy standpoint? These tools may well be needed, but do they have an impact from a privacy standpoint that is greater than what is warranted? … This is the central question,” Dufresne said.
Dufresne declined repeatedly to pronounce on that question until the RCMP brief his office.
The RCMP stressed the 10 uses of the invasive spyware were done with judicial sign-off. The force also strongly suggested the tactic was required due to the ubiquity of encrypted communications, which it contends makes its electronic investigations more difficult.