Do you know if your hosting provider here in Canada is releasing your personal information to US and Canadian authorities without your knowledge? A new study released today by the policy researchers Andrew Clement of the Universtiy of Toronto, and Jonathon Obar of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, in coordination with the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy looks at this exact question. This study looked at the privacy practices of the top 43 Canadian internet service providers, and surprisingly finds that most of them will tell very little about what they do with your personal information. According to the study, many Canadian internet carriers are in violation of their legal responsibilities under Canadian Privacy Law. The researchers based the internet service providers on 10 criteria including Whether they inform customers when a third party requests their information Whether they inform customers the circumstances in which they agree to the requests and provide customers information to said third parties. Whether they tell customers the location that their personal information is stored and processed Whether they attempt to avoid routing customers personal information outside of Canada, where it is at risk at being intercepted by American authorities. The study reveals that a number of the top carriers in Canada in fact scored quite poorly on this scale. Our of the ten criteria, the average was two out of ten, which speaks to the issues around Canadian carriers. Of the top isp's in the country, the top scorer was the Ontario based Teksavvy with six stars. Telus received five stars for their services in Western Canada. While the other two members of the big three, Rogers and Bell, scored with scores of four and three stars respectively. Rounding out the major isp's Shaw and Videotron were within the average at two stars each. The researchers hope that this landmark study will lead to tougher Canadian privacy laws either through federal or provincial legislation. As well, they hope that carriers will become more transparent when it comes to providing customers information on how they handle their private data. The issue with the lack of ISP transparency here in Canada, is it...
