Canada’s former privacy watchdog ‘surprised’ by RCMP spyware program – National

Canada’s former privacy commissioner says he was “surprised” to learn the RCMP had for years used “intrusive” spyware technology to monitor suspects’ encrypted devices.

And Daniel Therrien, who served as privacy commissioner from 2014 to 2022, confirmed that his office was not told about the secretive RCMP program, which hacked into 49 individual devices since 2017 while pursuing targets suspected of serious crimes like terrorism and murder.

“I was surprised by the tool itself and how intrusive it was, it is, and that it was used for so long,” Therrien told the House of Commons Ethics committee Tuesday.

“Certainly there have been many discussions over the years … on the ‘lawful access’ issue. And both in my term as commissioner and when I was at the Department of Justice, I was following and part of these discussions. But the use of this particular tool to go around encryption? Yes, it was a surprise.”

The RCMP revealed to Parliament in June that it used what it called “on-device investigative tools” or ODITs — spyware that gives the force a range of surveillance techniques such as remotely listening in on device microphones or activating cameras, along with collecting data like text messages or emails. The force said this type of electronic monitoring happened 10 times between 2017 and 2018.

In a letter to the committee released Monday, RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki revised that number up to 32 cases between 2017 and 2022, with 49 individual devices monitored.

Lucki said the force only used the investigative technique in the most serious cases, and “only if approved by a judge who explicitly authorizes the use of ODITs on a specific suspect’s device.”  Of the 32 instances detailed by the RCMP to the committee, eight of them involved terrorism, six related to trafficking and five were murder investigations.

But civil society groups and privacy advocates argue that Canada should not be engaging in the “mercenary spyware” market that has targeted activists, political dissidents, political figures and journalists across the world.

Ron Deibert, the director of The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto and an expert in surveillance technology, said comparing this type of spyware to traditional wiretaps is like comparing…