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Privacy

Canadian Gov't Keeps Detailed Citizen Database 163

Posted by timothy from the don't-worry-we're-from-the-government dept.
Byron Sonne wrote with word that Canada's Privacy Commissioner Bruce Phillips, in his annual report to Parliament, today criticized a national database kept by the Human Resources Department, calling it "tantamount to a citizen profile."

From the article: "The "extraordinarily detailed database" holds a dossier on almost every person in Canada with as many as 2,000 pieces of information about each person's education, marital status, ethnic origin, mobility, disabilities, income tax, employment and social assistance history."

Fear not -- Human Resources Minister Jane Stewart says that "[a]ll the information is secure, it's encrypted." Interesting, given that apparently blase attitude toward the propriety of keeping such a database in the first place, that Canada has a privacy commissioner at all -- but from the sound of this a fortunate thing it does.
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Canadian Gov't Keeps Detailed Citizen Database More

Canadian Gov't Keeps Detailed Citizen Database

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  • And of course you're not allowed to see what's in your file, unless it's stored on a computer, and even then it's not always possible.
    So when they want your encryption keys, just say "not until you let me look at all of your files about me". (If you get a chance during the beating...)
  • He specified female when he said "blonde". That is one of the few English adjectives which has gender. (Probably because it's not really English.) "Blond" is the masculine form.

    HTH. HAND.
  • I'm both :) Je m'appelle Dan, et je suis Canadien. My name is Dan, and I am Canadian.
  • What our american friend here doesn't understand is that in Canada right now, the biggest problem is not the French, Blacks, or whatever other minority the americans think are a problem. It's the Natives. There is a huge power struggle right now after we stripped some of their indian benefits (No PST, etc)
  • My mother once told me to never put in writing anything you don't want people knowing about. With the compilation of huge databases, this may be hard to avoid, but EVERYONE need not admit to anything beyond the required minimum. What if the required minimum grows? Well, then we should start clammoring for requirements that POLITICANS disclose personal details about their lives as an exchange for details on ours. I don't think most politicians would go for that. I KNOW Bill Clinton wouldn't.

    In this day in age with the coming (or is it here?) of what someone called the "Global Electronic Village," should we really be surprised that huge databases are being compiled? In a real village or small town, everyone knows everyone else and each other's business. Cheap mass transportation has enabled anonymity on a scale never before seen. Cheap information transfer, storage and retrieval seems to be scaling this back a bit.

  • Do you really believe that this is worse than what corporations are doing on the Internet and in the real world? Don't you think that almost everybody's name is on a list somewhere for sale? I have a Safeway card which I would rather not use but in order to get the really good deals on food, I swipe the card. So Safeway knows exactly who I am and what I like to buy. They know I almost always buy things that are on special. They know what kind of cheese I prefer. Have you ever entered a contest on the Internet? They are so easy to sign up for...and you might win real things! What do you think happens to that data?

    So what. My government keeps a file on everybody in the country. At least they aren't using that data to try and sell me something that I don't want and for which I have no use.
  • Let me tell you a little story :
    2 years ago I bought a second hand Alfa Romeo. A year later, just before the car reached 5 years (which is a time when the car must be checked by law in the Netherlands), I received a little letter from a Ford dealer telling me that I could change my Alfa to a Ford. I called this dealer and asked him how on Earth did he know my name, address, type and age of car I owned. His answer was incomplete but as far as I understood, there is a database of all car owners and their car somewhere in the Netherlands that can be used by dealers to spam you. Now, I never agreed to be in this DB, in fact, I did not know about it.

    How many databases like this one are we in? How many of these are legal under EU law? These are questions I want answers to!

  • I'm not saying that Denmark does it good. I'm just saying that most danes like it this way. Germans have to carry ID around when they walk on the street, most danes wouldn't accept a requirement to walk around with an ID.

    The difference between the CPR-number and the Social Security Numbers is the level of detail, that you can look up in the databases. Like Canada, we actually store all medicine you buy, you illness records etc. It's extremely valuable for research.

    What the law does, is to give politicians control of, what is stored, how long it is stored etc. In fact, our company makes an add-on product for Microsoft Access, that makes it comply with the law, so we know pretty much about it. It seems that the Canadians did not know about their databases. At least we do.

    I hope that countries stay different, and that other countries don't copy our system entirely, but I don't think you can stop government use of database systems. And I think openness and regulations are better than ignorance.
  • First of all who do you think discovered/founded Canada, does Jacques Cartier (French) ring a bell? Oldest cities: Montreal, Quebec.

    And if you like the "here first" mentality shouldn't the Indians rule the country?

    Get your facts straight before you post, the french we here first (ok, after the Indians). Oh and by the way, most english Canadians are Americans that were to chicken to fight for their independance from england during the 1700's so they moved to Canada... 'nuff said!

    (man I know better than to be drawn in a language debate but the temptation was just too strong...)
  • This is no suprise to me. The Nationalist Socialist movement in Canada has just rammed through strict gun control and confiscation laws. The next thing is special drugs in Moose Head and selective breeding. -- If they can find anybody or anything good enough to breed in Canada.


    --
    Craig Shaver, Productivity Group
  • Overheard on the news this morning.

    Request HRDC information [hrdc-drhc.gc.ca]
    .. oh and you have to pay a minimum of CAD$5 to get access to that information.
    ---

  • How many databases like this one are we in? How many of these are legal under EU law? These are questions I want answers to!

    A couple of years back a law was passed on databases containing private information: all such databases must be registered with a central instance, precisely documenting its contents and its intended uses. Furthermore, anyone asking for their entry in a database must be provided with the full details. I've forgotten the name of where this information has to be filed, but that should be reletively easy to find out. And so it was: it's called de regitratiekamer [registratiekamer.nl] (the registration chamber). They have an "English" option, so not knowing Dutch is not a problem for Merkins and other English speaking furriners.

    Stefan.
    Privacy is like a souvenir: you'd never known you've lost it until you looked for it.

  • I can't really say that I trust Canadian government department employees' professionalism

    Yeah. I'm filing an Access to Information request for my part of the database. If they keep information on me, I'm legally entitled to see what it is. I'd encourage all Canadians to do this.

    My tax information should be between me and RevCan, not between me and RevCan and any HRDC employee who happens to be having an unprofessional day.

  • Could you please pull your head out of your ass and stop with the Alberta stereotypes. I've lived in 5 provinces, and have met racist rednecks in every one of them, including the apparent centre of the universe, Toronto.

  • In the US, the FBI has a huge database [bpent.com] with pictures from almost 90% of the population.

    The Big Brother is coming.

    --

  • That's not just cynical, that's bad taste! With 'more information' I didn't mean any of the things you mentioned, I hate those things just as much as you. The problem at the moment is that nobody exactly knows who where living in that neighborhood; people are still missing relatives and friends who *could* still be living in that area. Thanx to the administrative chaos, nobody has any certainty about the total number of casualties. So nobody knows when to stop looking for survivors (or bodies), and I think that that's a bad thing.
    How to make a sig
    without having an idea
  • Why? I think that history has shown us many times that the English and French do not mix

    Not referring to that little spat we had called the Hundred Years War are you? It was all in the spirit of gentlemanly fun. There were no hard feelings on either side.
  • The department (Human Resources) relies on staff professionalism to prevent misuse of the database. Doesn't that make you feel better?
  • One major database or a buch of small databases that are linked together, what is the difference?

    The thing that worries me is what is this database linked to....Criminal Records, credit cards, slashdot posts................

    Hey could this go on my perminant record?

  • This is potentially bad, but it would be far worse if some private organization had the same info in consolidated form. Governments tend to be incompetent, and that bodes well for your information not becoming a problem. Now if they are ever courted by big business to the degree the U.S. gov't is...

    In the states, you can bet that this database would be accessible from any corporate Tom, Dick and Harry. Heck, the information that the U.S. credit bureaus (private) have on its citizens is staggering, and available to anyone you would make a big-ticket purchase from; do not fool yourself into believing it just goes back the mythical seven years either, as that is pure fiction.

    -L

  • Restrictions are necessary (Score:3)

    by nano-second ( 54714 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2000 @03:47AM (#1067506)
    That's what I thought too, but then I read the article and realised that it wasn't so much the information being kept, but that there was no real regulation of it.

    The Privacy Commissioner reccomends "a fixed shelf-life for data, penalties for misuse, strict control on collection and legislative changes to set out the research mandate of the database."

    Currently, the data is never erased, and the Human Resources Dep't is not under the same strict provisions about the usage and collection of this data as Statistics Canada. (the other guys who collect a lot of data).

    I agree that it's not weird information to collect, it's just that in this particular case, there doesn't seem to be much that protects the usage of the database other than "staff professionalism"... oh goody.
    ---

  • Dude - If you didn't have a CSIS file before, you do now. Congrats. ;)

    ---------
  • If I lie in a deposition, I am fined and/or serve some jail time. Afterward, I am free to go about my business. If the US President, who is charged with enforcing the law (and is also a lawyer), lies in a deposition, shouldn't he endure a penalty more severe, especially since he used his Office to stymie the Jones Investigation?

    If you lie in a deposition one of any number of things will happen to you, the most excessive being a fine or jail term. If you are misleading and evasive in a deposition, you will most likely get the judge's "stern look number 25". I have heard nothing that indicates that Clinton's testimony met the legal criterion of perjury, and impeachments are only for legal crimes (high crimes, I might add, which perjury may or may not be). Its not a vote of no confindence because the president did a naughty thing then didn't own up to the full details when asked a more limited question.

    If you were asked in a deposition if you had dinner with someone and said "no" instead of "no, but I did have a drink at the cocktail bar and one pretzel" you would be committing the same level of "perjury" clinton was accused of. All IMHO, of course.

    PS, last time I checked, making motions of lawyer-client or executive privilege through propper channels didn't count as "styming" an investigation. It's standing up for your own constitutional rights. Presidents have those too, ya know.

    -Kahuna Burger

  • I already sent in an email in French complaining about this, since I'm a dual citizen living in the US, and this was the first I heard of it.

  • Holland, as well as Belgium and France, have completely de-centralised collecting and storing data on their citizens. This is because it was centralised to some fashion when the nazis took over and used those lists to weed out undesirables. The nazis seized each community's records, and then slowly but surely weeded out Jews, Gypsies, Gays, Philosophers, left leaning ex-politicians, Clergy, students who dropped out of school (possibly to join resistance), and the list goes on. After the war, it was made as difficult as possible for anyone in charge of the country to efficiently target any single group. It might start in one area, but that would alert others who could then take a counter-action to save lives.

    Large random acts of distruction happen very rarely, and if it takes a little extra time to comb through some local tax and phone records to compile a list of people in a neighborhood, then we'll accept that extra bit of inefficiency. It is much better for a government to be inefficient than to give up all your privacy, and perhaps your life, because someone was able to dredge through a nationwide database and decide you are now undesirable.

    I think the missing count is way down today, as they manually strike names off of various lists compiled in haste. But the body count is rising slowly as search efforts continue. Almost everyone in my town knows someone or of someone affected by the blast, it's sad, really.

    There are several quotes floating around by various famous people who fought for freedom. Some americans, french, indians, south africans, and others who watched the horribly criminal actions of rogue governments who were a little too efficient in their enforcement of unfair laws. Look around, you'll see them as poster's sigs on /. and usenet.

    the AC

    The upside of having no central tax database is that many people move to a new district every year, because it takes about a year for the tax records to follow them. After 5 or 10 years, the tax authorities will finally catch up, and present a bill for the previous 3 years. YMMV & IANATL :-)
  • Well, then we should start clammoring for requirements that POLITICANS disclose personal details about their lives as an exchange for details on ours. I don't think most politicians would go for that. I KNOW Bill Clinton wouldn't.

    Wouldn't want to tell us what? His name and address? His income and from what sources? His weight, age, medical history, last three addresses, previous marriages, how many guns he's licensed to own, what church he attends, where he goes each time he leaves the country and his entire criminal record? What are you really talking about here?

    If you're envisioning a time when the government will require us to tell them the names, places and possitions for all our sexual encounters, yes, politicians like any other person wouldn't go for it. For the information the canadian government is keeping, requiring public disclosure for clinton or anyone else of that level is redundant.

    Or maybe you think that for you to admit how many guns you own, clinton should give detailed accounts of his sex life. Sounds a little too petty for that to be it.

    -Kahuna Burger

  • Im Canadian, and let me say, this blows. Its time for us to start bitchin :)

    However, I'll bet that this database is small compared to some of the others out there. At least its encrypted, but I wonder if it's connected to the net.

    I wish that they'd ask us before they did something like this - but even if they did, I'm sure that most people would say "huh? I dont care." and leave it be.
  • You should see a significant decrease in bulk addressed mail, telephone solicitations and suchlike when you follow the Direct Marketing Association's instructions for opting out:

    Americans:
    http://www.the-dma.org/consumers/consumerassistanc e.html

    Canadians:
    Do Not Mail/Do Not Call Service
    Canadian Marketing Association
    PO Box 706
    Don Mills, ON
    M3C 2T6
    Fax: 416-391-1237

    Also, Canucks can call their local PO and have them stop unaddressed bulk mail deliveries.

    Finally, there is a telemarketers do-not-call service for us Canucks. It's a 1-800 number, but I long-ago lost it. I suggest you rip Sprint Canada a new asshole the next time they call you, to the point where they *want* to give you the opt-out number. :-)

    *THIS DOES WORK* I receive virtually no bulk mail (some bulk mailers don't belong to the association) and so few telemarketing calls as to be inconsequential.

    I've just tried the American DMA's email opt-out thang. Godz willing, I'll see a decrease in spam. Oh, how I hope!

    Feel free to make a website telling everyone about this!

    --
  • Not two minutes later, I finally clue in that there may be a CMA website to compliment the DMA one...

    So, Canucks, you can do it online (unlike the poor Americans) by visiting: http://www.the-cma.org/main.html and poking through the "consumer" section.

    EMail spam, telemarketing spam and addressed bulk mail spam are all addressed! Whoo-hoo!


    --

  • Canuk count (Score:3)

    by BoLean ( 41374 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2000 @03:16AM (#1067515) Homepage
    I feel sorry for those poor Canadians when some junk mailer gets hold of the list. Ed McMahon is commin' yer way.

  • Dating-service... (Score:3)

    by hades ( 88469 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2000 @03:17AM (#1067516) Homepage

    cat database | grep "18 years old, blonde, big boobs, loves Linux" > /dev/me

  • I think you underestimate how the government would react to a larger load. As a government they don't have the need to be accountable so they'd hire more people to do the work and then proclaim the database a success because so many people were using it.

    If you question me, examine the national firearms registration program.
  • If they have a detailed record of my existence, I think I ought to have the right to see it. If I don't have that right, then I'll add this to the growing list of reasons to leave Canada. Other reasons include: o taxes are *crazy* here o I can't make as much money here o gov't is generally much more socialist, doesn't respect individual rights enough o people here continually look to gov't for answers -- to much "entitlement mentality". There are good things about being Canadian too, but right now I'm in a pissy mood :-) -VonKruel
  • You really think that the U.S. Government doesn't have detailed databases about every citizen? Who are you joking. They probably know what you had for lunch yesterday.
    --

  • This is a very real problem: I had a job while I attended university (See HRDC for number and details of failed classes) that involved processing companies' mailing lists for the purposes of direct marketing (read junk mail and telemarketing). No Flames please! I've since moved on to more respectable work.

    We would take a mailing list (name, address, city, province), check that against Canada Post's postal code database (software readily available) to correct and add postal codes. This postal code would then be used to geolocate that individual (within a range of less than a block in an urban setting. Try it at www.mablast.com.) Using the StatsCan census data (also mapped to geographic regions) and some geographic information software we would produce demographic profiles of databases.

    A simple postal code can produce a lot of probabilities about a person. (For example, if you live in a neighborhood where the average income is about $30,000, then you aren't very likely to be making $60,000. You aren't very likely to be targetted for new car ads either).

    The above is an example of what can be done with publicly available information, and was limited by the keys that could be used to match. Govt DBs contain Social Insurance Numbers (there is a complaint in the comissioner's report about overuse of SINs) and can match at will.

  • Please think before opening your yap. Us redneck Albertans don't want privatized health care any more than you self-centred eastern Canadians, however with Red-Nosed-Ralph in charge we don't have much choice in the matter.
  • You're saying that amongst all the relatives and friends of an individual, not one of them knows his/her current address?
  • A good question is -how- is it encrypted? Cyphered with rot13? Frobnicated with 8bit XOR 42? Or something useful?

    ---
    script-fu: hash bang slash bin bash

  • Human Resources (Score:5)

    by BWS ( 104239 ) <swang@cs.dal.ca> on Wednesday May 17, 2000 @03:50AM (#1067524)
    Having spend 12 months on a co-op job at Humans Resources Development Canada's Ontario Regional Headquarters in the Systems Admin area, I have to agree that their concenpt of secure is a joke -->

    1. They believe they are less prone to attacks because they use 'Banyan VINES' and no-one uses Banyan VINES.

    2. Whereas most companies uses Windows NT rather then Windows 9x or 3.x since its more secure[LINUX Trolls, I know LINUX is more secure but you have to admit that NT Security is better hten Windows 9x or 3.x]. HRDC seems bent on using all three operating systems.

    3. Dial-Up. These people allow workers dialup from HOME using ReachOut [think along lines of Symantec pcAnywhere].

    4. Theft. When I was working there, out of an staff of 400 there was 2 stolen lap tops and someone manage to break in and steal 4 machines. I hate to know what are on those harddrives.

    5. AUTO-LOGIN! Half the people in the building has it setup [through TweakUI] so that their computer automatically logon to the network for them when they bootup.

    6. Job Termainals --> Any Canadian knows about them, they're the little things at malls and stuff that helps you find a job. Well, those things are connected to the entire HRDC network. If someone compromise one of these, then they're screwed.

    7. Incomptant Admins --> When I did my co-op there, out of the 10 admins there only 2 had a college degree and out of the two, one was an Psychology Degree. Most of the admins are qualified because they took some 'Computer Repair' or 'Acess Design' course at a community college or somewhere.

    8. Idiot Workers --> Have you heard of the recent CSIS problems? [CSIS = NSA]. A BRIEFCASE of confidental docuemnts was stolen from a car of a agent while he was at a ball game.

    Expecting the Canadian Government to keep a secure private database is like asking a car to fly, its not going to happen.

  • I used to get pissed of @ comments like this until I realized that in the states people who live in the Suburbs tend to have cleaner air, less crime, live longer, are better educated, have better health care, etc. So I can understand why an American would feel that way.

    But we ain't Yanks, and as God is good we never will be.

  • At least we are officially aware of the government keeping a database about us.
    I can approximate two lists of government databases in other countries...
    Number of countries that does not have a similar database 0
    Number of countries where people are officially aware about this database 0
  • appearantly that's the case. It is a poor neighborhood, with cheap houses, most of them rented. The rate of change in that area can be quite large, so it's harder to keep track of single individuals. There's also lots of students renting rooms there (also subject to rapid changes), you've got illegals living there, people who are seeking asylum etc..
    How to make a sig
    without having an idea
  • Or maybe you think that for you to admit how many guns you own, clinton should give detailed accounts of his sex life. Sounds a little too petty for that to be it.

    Why is it so petty? Personally, I don't care to know about the sex lives of Clinton or anybody else for that matter. But, if I'm required to disclose information to a government agency, I would want to know about the people I'm disclosing my information to. The keepers of information can have no power over you if you know how to get to them. Secrecy IS power. If I must give up personal anonymity, then the entity I give it to MUST allow me access to it.
  • the Canadian Department of National Defense went to the war museum to pull out some artillery pieces for the Gulf War.
    Unlike a 50-year-old crypto machine, a 50-year-old howitzer is still a weapon to be feared. Hell, I wouldn't want to face one from WWI. Today they make them out of stronger alloys and they have better range, but an artillery corpsman from 1945 would have no difficulty figuring out where to shove the shells in a modern machine (and vice versa). Sort of like automobile drivetrains; all the mechanical parts of a MY2000 engine would be easily recognized by a mechanic from 1950, especially if they were presented in context.

    Sometimes people who live on Internet time with its hyper-rapid obsolescence need a reminder: some things are actually MATURE and (relatively) stable!
    --
    This post made from 100% post-consumer recycled magnetic

  • Credit agencies are also obliged to give you access to your credit history. Your medical records, legal history, and most other "important information" are all to be made known to you if you request it.

    While this is true it is also misleading to most people. The credit agencies have to give you access to the raw information they collect. However they are under no obligation to tell you your "credit rating" or any other interpretation they make of your data. In fact it is these interpreted facts that are the most important to know. If an individual was talking "behind your back" saying, "that guy is a dead-beat" you'd want to know about it.

  • Interesting (to me anyway) but slightly off-topic is that when the Cdn government adopted Social Insurance Numbers (SINs) to track pension contributions, it was only after the government of the day had assured Parliament and the country that SINs would never be used as an identity number for citizens in general. This assurance, of course was worth nothing. The only thing that keeps every citizen's information from being completely cross-indexed is the relative enormity of such a task (considering the wild assortment of different data sources involved). Human Resources Development Canada has bee on a spending spree for a couple of years, so it makes sense that they would be the first to implement such a thing.

    On the private-sector side, it is actually not legal for anyone to demand your social insurance number for any purpose except making payroll tax deductions. That is, you are not obligated to provide an SIN on an employment application, credit application, university entrance application, rental contract, etc. However, this is now an accepted practice, and financial institutions generally reject credit or new account applications from anyone who refuses to provide an SIN.

    Your rights under law, in other words, are not your rights in practice.

  • My understanding is that this sort of law is standard in most of Europe. I recall that some American politician recently try to pressure Germany into dropping its privacy protection legislation (it was reported here at /. too). I'm hoping that the Candian Bill C6 takes Canada in the same direction as Europe and not down the slippery slope the USA fell down.

    Big Brother (the government watching our every move) is certainly a dangerous thing. Big Stranger (corporations watching our every move) is sinister and shouldn't be tolerated.

  • Huh. I did not know that. Wierd.
    --
  • I also interviewed with Human Resources Canada for a co-op job. They are the most clueless people I have ever met or spoken to when it comes to computers (and I used to work in tech support!). I took a different job, needless to say.

    And just when I thought the Canadian government was being smart about privacy, cryptography, and other geek issues (i.e., Ontario's pamplet encouraging citizens to use crypto, CSE's public key infrastructure, the law preventing the CRTC (think FCC) from regulating the net.)...

    Well, that just cinches it. Unless the US makes some particularly bonehead moves about net taxes or patents or something, I'm heading south as soon as I graduate...

    Braindrain? Count me in... I can make twice as much in the States, and get a better job and have my rights respected (sort of).
  • but we'd really really *really* like to be cheech to your chong guys...

    why can't we? get with it! enough with the stupid war on drugs already!
  • Hey fellow Canucks, I'm sending them an email requesting that they give me what they have on file about myself. If anyone is interested in doing the same or if you have already done it, please contact me... Thanks!
  • > I feel sorry for those poor Canadians when some junk mailer gets hold of the list.

    We'll know it has happened when we start getting adds for
    !!!!! 31 MILLION EMAIL ADDRESSES FOR ONLY 50 DOLLARS (CANADIAN) !!!!!

    --
  • That's as may be, but it seems unlikely to me that a government database would help in these cases.
    It's not as if illegal immigrants are going to helpfully inform the government every time they move...
  • <snip>
    Afterall, Canada is just the suburbs of the US isn't it?
    </snip>

    Wrong. Canada is Ono to your Yoko.

  • Though it's tempting to blame this all on "Big Brother" as the lead article does we really have too look at the root causes.

    Canada is traditionally a pretty socialist country. Even the most right wing reform member couldn't seriously suggest disbanding universal health care and expect to get re-elected. I don't want to get into this too much, but one of the cost efficiencies of social programs that are universal is that they are available to all people... a huge amount of money is saved on administration costs necessary to keep the "wrong people" out. Hospitals, clinics, etc. just do what they do without having to worry about checking a credit rating

    Anyway, so assume this (probably most American readers think it's crap as their political environment tends to be much more right wing as a norm; trust me for the sake of argument.) Now we have all sorts of social programs running, a good number of those for 20-30 years. The governments are cutting back and cutting budgets. Most of these major social programs (homeless shelters, clinics, employments centres, etc) contibute to the public good. Many items are not tangible but they have an overall effect on communities people live in.

    How should these departments save money? All in great chorus: put all the information in a database and share it all. It just makes sense that every clinic you go to, or unemployment office should be able to figure out who you are so you can be treated. Just makes sense right? Technology put to good use, right?

    More cutbacks later, conservative governments allowing companies into school boards which show TV commercials as part of the opening announcements in schools, hospitals closings, major restructuring of social systems without any democratic input (a la Mike Harris)... where does that leave us? Private industry has a firm toe hold in public goods. Departments have dwindling budgets and they need money to continue services....

    It just makes sense that they are going to want to centralize information. It's more efficient and it's a natural reaction to market forces.

    Maybe we should alter our discussion somewhat and consider that it's not Big Brother that's a dnager to our privacy... maybe it's our pocketbooks. Does this mean we have to pay for privacy? Is this good or bad?

    Just wanted to put this discussion in a different light...

  • It isn't wierd data to collect, but it is wierd to hold it all in a central place. This is all data that should be collected by seperate parts of the Government and housed by that section of Government. It should _not_ be all placed in a single database for HR Canada to do with what they feel like.

    The Privacy Commissioner is correct, there needs to be some rules of use for this information and penalties for mis-use. Above that I would inquire as to why HR needs all that information. I don't think they need access to all the information they say is housed in that database.

    forge
  • > Scary. I'd say, "well, thank god the US doesn't have something like that" but...

    What's scary is thinking about getting lynched by the neighbors when one of those u'd states accidentally includes your name in their for-public-consumption pedo databases.

    Convenient way to get rid of troublemakers, though. And a lot cheaper than running a Gulag.

    --
  • All branches of the Canadian government suffer from "reverse amnesia". None of their databases forget. I used to work at Customs & Excise Canada, and we were working on a new "front line" system: that's the program that tells the officers if you should be searched when they scan your passport in. This new program was built to replace the old one running on minis and mainframes.

    The most popular complaint about the old system was that it never forgot. If you came in with *one* undeclared bottle of wine when you were 19, and were caught, then you would be put into this system. It then would tell front line officers that you were to be "sent to secondary" (ie. searched) each and every time you crossed the border. The system could not tell the front line officer the difference between "known terrorist" and "caught bringing in an undeclared bottle of wine at age 19", it just said "search him".

    The people most pissed about this: cross-border shoppers, who live in Canada near the USA border, and go shopping in the USA on weekends. If they were ever put into the system, they would be searched each time they go and buy a pack of gum in the USA, and come back to Canada.

    Gotta luv good design.

    Pat.

  • Jane Stewart (Score:3)

    by smartin ( 942 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2000 @04:20AM (#1067545)
    Yeah I trust her. I think this is the same person that basically pissed away $1 Billion in grants that she couldn't really account for, most of which went to her own riding (someone please correct me or provide the details if i'm wrong).
  • So we are racists, eh?
    I don't want any Alberta racist rednecks running my country and destroying everything it stands for just to become more like the US.

    You prove yourself a hypocrite with this statement. You are doing the exact same thing towards western Canadians that you are accusing us of doing towards visual minorities.

    There are far more hate groups such as the Heritage Front in Ontario and Eastern Canada than there are from Manitoba east.

    As for us Alberta hicks, a good 90% of the population lives in two large cities, having nothing to do with the farmers and ranchers that produce most of the food that you eat, but thank you for the stereotypical comments.

    The biggest problem in Canada is that we have only rep by pop in such a diverse country. Our prime minister is the only person in the government with real power and the largest region can easily select the PM who is most friendly towards them. The Alliance or whatever their name du jour is, will actually represent Western Canada. I will vote for them and I am far from a racist.

  • Or maybe you think that for you to admit how many guns you own, clinton should give detailed accounts of his sex life. Sounds a little too petty for that to be it.

    Why is it so petty? Personally, I don't care to know about the sex lives of Clinton or anybody else for that matter. But, if I'm required to disclose information to a government agency, I would want to know about the people I'm disclosing my information to.

    The pettyness is in expecting personal information several orders of magnitude more personal than they are asking for from you. Thats why I gave the example of Clinton's sex life vs another person's gun licenses. The point is that you do or can know almost everything about our president that the Canadian government is holding on citizens. In fact, US politicians are expected as a matter of campainging to reveal the kind of medical information that we expect to be completely confidential for the average citizen. The implication that equal disclosure for pols would scare them is silly, unless you were trading number of orgasms for number of cars, etc. And that, IMHO, would be petty.

    -Kahuna Burger

  • The funny thing was, Statistics Canada cancelled a schedule released of a panel dataset because of security reason. One of my classmates has been waiting for a year for the security check passed through such that he can use that dataset to complete his empirical studies. I just don't understand how many people in the world can trace the information of a particular person if the dataset is without names, addresss, telephone numbers or any direct identification information.

    Not my problem though, coz' they would not let me pass the security check anyway as I am not a Canadian at the moment.
  • Wow, forget a comma or two...

    I did not mean to imply that ALL Albertans are racists or rednecks, just the ones who are gung ho about Reform/Alliance (my wife is from Calgary BTW).

    Why you may ask? When at a Reform party convention a few years ago, a delagate stood up, and told the room in A THICK SCOTTISH BROGUE that the big problem in Canada was 'immigration', I got the message real quick (his problem was with 'immigration' from places where the people are, shall we say, of a different hue and texture than he). Worse, everyone in the room nooded in agreement or applauded.

    Even Preston Manning has admitted that the party attracts extremists. How many Liberals, Conservatives, BQ or NDP members have been kicked out of their party for racist remarks? Now how many from the Reform/Alliance? I thought so...(BTW a few Hertitage Front members in Toronto actually joined the Ontario Wing of the Reform Party because they thought it was a good place to be!!)

    Sorry I threw the whole Alberta name in there. I could just as easily said Ontario (Tom Long).
    It's not the part of the country that bothers me so, its the ultra-conservative politics (I don't like Mike Harris or Bill VanderZalm or Ralph Klien for the same reasons).

    Now, given all that, please take my previous statement as a direct reference to Ralph Klein et al (who, in my opinion are racist, rednecks and are in fact from Alberta) not to the people of Alberta.

    Do me one favour...don't turn a blind eye to the seedier, unpleasant, extremist side of Alliance just becasue you want better representation from the west. You just might get what you vote for.

  • Read that "Alberta-redneck-racists" as a direct reference to Ralph Klein, Preston Manning et al and not the the populace of Western Canada in General.

    Gee wiz...
  • While I agree with you that the mess started with Pettigrew, I won't believe for a moment that she was oblivious about what was going on. I conviced she knew, and parcipated in the attempted cover-up. BOTH should be held accountable along with HRDC's senior bureaucrats. At any rate, regardless of which one of our versions of the story is right, she's certainly shown that she's incapable of running the department and has no idea what the people under her are doing. Is this the the person you want all your personal information entrusted to? What about her successor? We don't even know who that is. That scares me too.
  • > I don't want any Alberta racist rednecks running my country and destroying
    > everything it stands for just to become more like the US.

    Actually, Tom is an Ontarian... Really good friends with Mike Harris (oh, yeah, that's a good thing... *sigh* )

  • There is some irony here. This database is maintained by Human Resources and used for decision making. Over at Stats Canada, they want to destroy the 1911 census rather than release it as they have previous censuses, including 1901. Their argument is that releasing the original census data - it is literally copies of the forms that where filled out on people's doorsteps - would violate the privacy of the people listed. This is pissing off people who want to do geneological research as censuses are incredibly useful when researching family history. It lets you find out where people were at a given point in time so you can more effectively search other public records - which were not, until now, centralized. With out the census data, we deprive people of the ability to find out where they came from - unless we give them access to this centralized database. Secure access, of course. On the web. Uh huh. Bureaucrats just don't get it.

  • I know, I know...I was just hoping an somebody else would win. Tom Long is the scariest of the lot...And I can't stand Mike Harris either. He ranks up there with Ralph Klein.

    The best thing Mike Harris ever did was make Bob Rae look good.

  • Its not called redundant...the correct word is oxymoron...!!!
  • It was my first co-op job [Think Intern] after 1 year of College. It was like work experience training.

  • 7. Incomptant Admins --> When I did my co-op there, out of the 10 admins there only 2 had a college degree and out of the two, one was an Psychology Degree. Most of the admins are qualified because they took some 'Computer Repair' or 'Acess Design' course at a community college or somewhere

    You really can't judge some simpily based on whether or not they went to university..if they have the skills[1] and the experience, then it doesn't matter if they went to University or not.

    8. Idiot Workers --> Have you heard of the recent CSIS problems? [CSIS = NSA]. A BRIEFCASE of confidental docuemnts was stolen from a car of a agent while he was at a ball game.
    I believe it was a woman [insert sexist remark here =P], and she it was outside her Hotel or something.

    [1] Obviously they are not competent, since they allow people to use auto-logins, win95, and all the other insecure items you mentioned.

  • so where is this data coming from?

    the only agencies i can think of capable of filling 200o fields on your average joe are credit rating agencies, e.g. Equifax, who hold just everyone by the balls. I read here a while back someone who had quit the UK for work in US,and couldnt get that company to give over even basic details of his history enough to open a bank account. Left him on friends' couches for 4 months - and that even afetr he was a lead programmer for them in the UK!I worry more often about CORPS being conduits for private informationthan governments - the profit motive giving off a stench of bent morals and aggressive instincts with much greater frequency

    but what about data typing - can you think of 2000 items about yourself that are generoic enough to apply to every citizen? Maybe this means Medical histories, all previous addresses, whoever you ever banked with or worked for . . . the list goes on.

    Here in the UK i would be most concerned about the incresing access of executive bodies - civil service and law enforcement access to statutorily collected information. The problem is it gives an INCENTIVE for some people to search for personal histories matching criminal types or social agitatorsrecently in London there was a Reclaim the Streets protest which quickly became a riot, apparently agitated by a small contingent. But regardless of your interest in these things, even curiosity, "involvement" would place you under the auspices of the Prevention of Terrorism Act - Read imprisonment without charge (like Mitnick), wire tap without warrant (tho the UK already has rights to tap ANY DATA CALL - so fsuk VOIP thanks) and to continue to do so for a LONG timemoreover i recently heard a lot about Telcos handing over unrelated calling patterns and destinations for the criminal inestigation of parties who could not be proven to be even related to crime - again without warrant or orderthe problems here were NOT with the fact that a database could exist, but embedded in the social management of legislative / executive body responsibilities - i.e. the arbitray and undefined passing of authority to organisations without direct accountability and without publicly visible organisational structures If Tacitus said that the proliferation of laws indicated a corrupt state, we must all, everywhere, look hard at the excuses technology has given our "elected representatives" (in quotes because who we elect too often passes off to appointees, monopolistic cronies, whoever) to pass ever more complicated bills supposedly to DEAL with the complex innovations.
  • It has been estimated that the average Dutch citizen has an entry in 400 databases. Makes you think.

    But luckily it's still against the law to combine those databases, though of course, in the end that will happen. And it will be used for maintaining laws and finding all sorts of offences. "Hmm, no income reported over the last couple of years, but two expensive cars and a couple of houses... Lets check into that."

    Of course, I don't object to that, but there's other privacy matters that are scarier. Read 1984, for examples.

    Stefan.
    Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.
    --Terry Pratchett in "Wyrd Sisters"

  • I am not a haxor. I am not an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist. I use the internet to check on hockey scores, not for DDOS attacks. I believe in nationalized health service. My domain is .ca My government keeps a securely encrypted dossier on me. My name is Joe, and I am a Canadian! Reality is, in fact, virtual.
  • Very true. However....

    Things like the fireworks factory are a very rare occurance. So rare in fact that I am willing to bet my salary for the next two years that you and 200 of your closest friends will not get blown up by an exploding fireworks warehouse.

    Rare occurances, such as you describe, might seem like a good time to have such a database. But is having such a database the rest of the time a good idea? It might make you feel all warm and fuzzy, but not me.

  • Uhm, is this the same civil service that has an enormous union? Is this the same civil service that works possibly 5 hours a day, has paid spas, 2 hour lunches, tax-payer provided cars and turns around and practically quotes the Communist Manifesto when small business has a problem with delinquent welfare 'clients?' The same civil service that has helped cover up innumerable PR fiascos in my short lifetime? Westray, Airbus, et al. Come on, people! It's corrupt at worst and incompetant at best and you trust professionalism? Ye gods! And do you suppose that's all the information they keep? Ha! Besides, aren't most attacks supposed to happen from inside an organization. Yeah. 'Ole Bobby MacCanuck's just been let go due to budget cuts and he's feelin' just a wee bit cranky. His supervisor promptly went to lunch and told Bobby to clean out his desk. Little does Bobby's supervisor know but the former civil servant just queried the whole database onto a DVDROM and thinks he'll get a couple months worth of EI by selling it to a headhunter company. Heck, maybe they'll even hire him for his initiative.

    not only is the universe stranger than you imagine,
    it's stranger than you are capable of imagining

  • I'm Canadian and I don't like the idea of the Government keeping that much detail on me. A few years ago they started making the mandatory census surveys very detailed (mandatory = jail term if you don't send them in or caught falsifying them). I don't like it one bit.

    But...

    I'm much less concerned about the Government having this information than Corporations having this information.

    In Canada we have the FOIP [Freedom of Information and Privacy Act]. That is why we have a Privacy Commisioner. Well he may or may not be effective in getting the Goverment to responsibly deal with the security of its citizen database the FOIP isn't all bad legislation.

    Recently in Canada we also got a law called Bill C6 which forces Companies to disclose what information they are collecting, why the are collecting, it and who they share it with. In the USA there is nothing like this. Companies are "encouraged" to publish privacy policies on-line but in other realms of commerce their is nothing.

    I'm really glad the Commisioner has put this out in the open. I really hope Bill C6 has some teeth!

    .
  • Alliance: get rid of gun control (make Toronto more like Detriot), destroy (privatized/ two-tier) our healthcare system, outlaw abortion (ask Tom Long), get rid of any other right or program which gets in the way of their backers (see Conrad Black) from making obscene amounts of money.

    I don't want any Alberta racist rednecks running my country and destroying everything it stands for just to become more like the US.

    I'd even go so far as to vote for Brian Mulroney again rather than give those idiots a chance. Hell I'd even vote for the Bloc before I'd vote for any of them.

  • That's not entirely true. There is the FOI act (Freedom of Information) that forces the government to reveal your "file" to you should you request it. It forces them to give up other information also. "National Security" is sort of a blanket to get around it (they can censor your "file" if publishing it could compromise "National Security") but it has been beat time and time again in court.

    Credit agencies are also obliged to give you access to your credit history. Your medical records, legal history, and most other "important information" are all to be made known to you if you request it. The hard part is knowing where to request it. Collecting information isn't illegal and once that information is decided to be important enough laws are passed that usualy force the companies involved to share it with the people they are collecting it on.

  • cat database | grep "18 years old, blonde, big boobs, loves Linux" > /dev/me

    LOL! You forgot to specify "female." I'm sure there are plenty of male Slashdot readers who fit that description.
    --

  • Uhm... (Score:3)

    by ruud ( 7631 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2000 @03:20AM (#1067595) Homepage
    information about each person's education, marital status, ethnic origin, mobility, disabilities, income tax, employment and social assistance history

    Aren't these all legitimate things where you'd expect a government to have databases about? Whether it should be in a single centralized database is another matter, of course.
    --

  • Do me one favour...don't turn a blind eye to the seedier, unpleasant, extremist side of Alliance just becasue you want better representation from the west. You just might get what you vote for.

    The problem is that out in the west (I've lived in Ontario, and noticed that BC isn't considered part of the west. Go figure) we really ARE getting riled up about the absolute lack of representation. Ontario alone has a third of the ridings in the country. BC, Alberta, and Saskatchewan only had about 4 ridings that weren't Reform in the last election, and the Liberals still formed a majority government without the help of Quebec.

    The Quebecois vote in the Bloc because most of the people want representation, not because they want to leave the country. Their extremist fringe is a whole lot worse than the Reform Party/CA's.

    Personally, I'm not a big fan of the Reformers/CA, but who else do I vote for? The Tories are no longer a party worth considering, the federal NDP wouldn't get votes in BC because of the provincial NDP (and I don't like their policies, anyway). The Liberals are the "hated enemy" and that leaves us with what? The Canadian Alliance. Of course, if Day wins their leadership race, I will have to vote Liberal.

    Another note... Tom Long is very unlikely to win. He's just there to drum up support for the party in Ontario. He's not well-liked in this half of the country if we go by the people I've spoken with.

    ------

  • Being a canuck and noticing a similar headline in our local news rag, I am not surprised by this. Stats Canada is very thorough in its data collection and analysis. And since goverment is just another form of business, who also keeps databases on their clientel, it doesnt shock me. Canada has always had socialist tendancies in its politics and in order to maintain / run such a system, it requires that it gathers information on all its people. I would not be surprised if the US goverment does do the same. Isnt there a census going on down south ? There will always be database on people out there, no matter what laws are in place and who is enforcing them. If you wish to maintain some form of privacy, you have to control what type of data goes in there. It is much harder to trace someone's spending habits if they only use cash. You can withhold certain information from a census. You can always lie too, morals and beliefs permitting. Remember, it is about you and you have a say. Use it wisely.
  • (PS for all the Canadians reading this, if you don't think the likes of Tom "Sieg Hiel!" Long or Preston Manning wouldn't like to get their hands on this info, your sadly mistaken. The 'Alliance' Facists would be way worse than simply incompetent Liberals)

    If anything I have read modded up on /. ever deserved a good old (-1 Flamebait), this is it.

    You statement is so typical of the Canadian 'let it be' attitude that has allowed this country to be managed by people who aren't fit to wipe my ass for the last 10 years.

    We have astronomical taxes, declining productivity and government mismanagement all over the place. I'm voting for whomever looks like the strongest opponent to the Liberals (besides the NDP).

    Oh, before you throw around the word, 'facist' next time, try looking it up in a dictionary first.

  • Like almost everything in life: it has it's pro's and con's.

    This weekend in a town in Holland a fireworks factory exploded, resulting in 500 destroyed houses, more than 500 people injured, and an unknown amount of people killed. Up to now they found 17 bodies and lots of bodyparts, but there are still more than 200 persons missing. So they still have absolutely no idea of how many people actually died in the explosion; are all those 200 persons on the missing-list buried under the rubble?

    This uncertainty is largely caused by the fact that there isn't a central administration database in Holland, so therefore it is very hard to find out where people are living at the moment. So in times of a disaster like this, more information on the whereabouts of people wouldn't be so bad.
    How to make a sig
    without having an idea

  • The only mistake that Stewert made was going public with it. She got massacred by the media. Just like the Liberals intended.

    Why would she have known what was going on? She had nothing to do with the Ministry until she was appointed as Minister. She did not participate in the cover-up. Else we'd have never heard of the billion dollar boondoggle.

    ------

  • Oh, it's encrypted all right.

    Unfortunately it's ROT26 [segfault.org].

  • Re:Jane Stewart (Score:4)

    by JohnnyCannuk ( 19863 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2000 @05:01AM (#1067615)
    Actually, 'This Hour has 22 Minutes' made a good point about a month ago about the whole Jane Stewart thing...most of the money disappeared/was misappropriated/given away when Pierre Petigrew was the Minister. Now I beleive he's the Minister in charge of Industry. Jane Stewart walked in (las t aug I beleive), was told by Sr. bureaucrats everthing was OK and them had to face the music when it wasn't.

    Anyway, back to the topic at hand. It doesn't matter wether I beleive or trust Jane Stewart...Peirre Petigrew may come back or, God Forbid, the 'Alliance' forms the next government. Someone I definitely don't trust could take over in the future. Therefore nobody should beable to access this information.

    (PS for all the Canadians reading this, if you don't think the likes of Tom "Sieg Hiel!" Long or Preston Manning wouldn't like to get their hands on this info, your sadly mistaken. The 'Alliance' Facists would be way worse than simply incompetent Liberals)

  • One government database with reasonable correct data is way better than N corporate databases half filled with trash.

    Face it, both the government and the corps likes to keep track of us. They will do it wether we like it or not. If the corps buys their data from the central database, they:
    a) Has to follow some rules
    b) At least gets correct data about me, not something someone else entered in my name.
    c) are less inclined to build their own, more detailed database (esp if that is surrounded with decent laws)

    I think we should concentrate on the *use* of personal data rather than the mere existence thereof. (since it will never go away)

  • cat database | grep -E "18 years old|blonde|big boobs|loves Linux" > /dev/me
    --
  • In Canada, around 1990, it was revealed by the oversight committee that the CSIS (the Canadian equivalent of the CIA) has dossiers on 10% of the population. This doesn't include the files of course of the CSE (the equivalent of the NSA) or RCMP domestic intelligence, or military intelligence. The Canadian Government likes to watch.

    --
  • Stewart says that "[a]ll the information is secure, it's encrypted.

    Encrypted does not mean secure. Now that everyone knows it's out there, it will only be a matter of time till some 1337 haxor goes and cracs it, just for bragging rights if nothing else. Housing this information in just one place seems like a dumb move to me. I think it would be much more secure if they warehoused it in a more diverse manner.

    __

  • The fact is that probably every country in the world keeps some kind of database about the people who live in it, either through police files, electoral rolls or census information. Of course, most countries wouldn't admit it if they can get away with it, but I seriously doubt there are any that don't have them.

    I remember reading somewhere that over 15 million people here in the UK have police files on them. These include anyone who has ever been picked up by the police, anyone who is a member of a "subversive" organisation, privacy and free speech advocates and generally anyone who isn't a complete Middle England, Daily Mail reading, 2.4 children kind of person.

    I bet the percentage of /. readers with files on them is definitely greater than the 35% average :)

  • Am I the only one to find the line "all the information is secure, it's encrypted" slightly amusing? I think it's fair to say that no encryption is ever 100% secure, and computing technology of the future (like quantum computers) may be able to easily do a brute force attack on the best of today's encryption algorithms. The security of this data is pretty much dependent on the abilities of the governments IT people. For all we know, their secure encryption algorithm could be rot13!

    Even assuming that the encryption is secure, there's still the potential for disgruntled authorised users of this system to poke around in your record on the database, or to start selling bits of information to interested third parties.

    I think that most governments probably keep "extraoradinarily detailed" databases on their citizens, but I would assume that your educational records, tax records and health records are all kept in separate databases, in separate servers and in separate locations. The sheer scale of this database, and the possible consequences of its abuse are the really worrying factors.

  • I agree that it's not weird information to collect, it's just that in this particular case, there doesn't seem to be much that protects the usage of the database other than "staff professionalism"... oh goody.

    I can't really say that I trust Canadian government department employees' professionalism: Fishing for smut [salon.com]
    --

  • Under the FOIP I have the right to request that the Government send me a copy of all the information on me that is in this database, right?

    Why don't we get as many citizens as possible to use this right to get sent their information.

    Of course, since its a database, it gets updated. So perhaps we ought to request this information on a regular basis - say monthly.

    If enough people did so, the government would have to close down the database because they could not afford to keep sending out the information to those citizens requesting it....

  • The key problem with government databases like this is that it is so easy for commercial bodies to "purchase" information on individuals, especially since the security is down to (generally) poorly-paid goverment employees.

    In the UK, the Department of Social Security maintains a database of everyone with a National Insurance number (= social security id) called the Departmental Central Index. At one stage, it was possible for outside companies to buy info on an id for £5 (about $8) - this was illegal but it happened nonetheless.

  • Every government in the World does this. But I think there is more information to get from private companies databases than governemental ones. Think Visa, supermarkets, insurance companies, physicians, ... What the gvt DBs don't tell you about is your life style.

    It has been estimated that the average Dutch citizen has an entry in 400 databases. Makes you think.

  • Man, Canada is creepy.

    Thank goodness the US government would never keep information like that on it's citizens.

    BTW, have you spoken to your Census 2000 [census.gov] rep yet? Mine knocks on the door every damn night, but he looks like a serial killer, so I'm afraid to answer.

    Oh well, maybe in 2010.

    &nbsp-Tommy

    ------
    "I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday."

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