STOP THE SNOOPING

Municipalities Shouldn't Scoop Up Law-Abiding
Citizens In Their Quest To Crack Down On Criminals

If some of our municipal politicians have their way, it won't be just
Santa Claus preparing his annual list of who's naughty or nice. That
chore will also become the responsibility of businesses, required by
municipal bylaws, to pass along private and personal customer
information to police.

Ostensibly, the purpose of such municipal bylaws -- or, as I like to
refer to them, "snoop-and-scoop" bylaws -- is to gather personal
information, which can then be used by police to identify potential
criminal activity. But at what cost, I ask, to our privacy and
fundamental legal rights?

My concern about snoop-and-scoop bylaws was triggered when I read, to
my surprise, a recent headline in The Vancouver Sun. It announced
that, under new legislation, municipalities can ask BC Hydro to
disclose lists of customer addresses indicating excessive electrical
consumption, one of the telltale signs of marijuana grow operations.
But as I soon discovered in the recently released Report of the Office
of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for B.C., Local
Governments and the Growth of Surveillance, some municipalities have
for decades required certain businesses, such as pawnbrokers and scrap
metal merchants, to disclose customer information to police.

What is concerning, however, is the rapidly expanding scope and
magnitude of such snoop-and-scoop bylaws, and the potential for the
misuse of personal information.

For example, while personal information may only record such basic
details as name, address and description of the individual, as the
report notes, "many bylaws go further and require collection of more
detailed descriptive elements such as height, weight, race, gender,
eye colour, date of birth, picture identification and serial numbers
from identification cards. In some cases, identifying information of a
vehicle used to transport goods brought to a store is required."

What's also worrisome is the fact that municipalities are not just
targeting such high-profile activities as excessive hydro consumption,
but also such innocuous and legal activities such as renting a private
mail box or purchasing pepper spray.

The question is: Do municipalities even have the legal authority to
enact bylaws which clearly relate to the monitoring and control of
criminal activity, since criminal law is within the exclusive
jurisdiction of the federal government?

In effect, municipalities are essentially engaging in the role of a
quasi-police organization. However, only the police have the
authority, skills and training to identify and arrest criminals. If
the police suspect that a crime is being committed, they have recourse
to the courts to request and obtain information, through judicial
process, to facilitate a criminal investigation. Such legal processes
ensure that the rights and interests of the accused are represented
and protected, an invaluable and fundamental cornerstone of our free
and democratic society.

But, if police are granted unlimited access to personal information
without any such legal checks and balances, I fear any presumption of
being innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt is in
great jeopardy.

Yet even if I can be convinced that municipalities do have the legal
authority to enact snoop-and-scoop bylaws, I remain highly doubtful
that the privacy of the personal information will be protected, or
that it will actually be used for the intended purposes. As Canadians
we have been exposed to a litany of horrendous examples of government
corruption, waste, negligence and pure incompetence when dealing with
taxpayer money. Considering that your own personal information is far
more valuable, what confidence do you have that any government
organization can guarantee the safekeeping of your identity?

As the privacy commissioner's report explains, "Moreover, the impact
on the rights of individuals who are monitored, the vast majority of
who are simply using a completely legal service or buying legal
products for innocent reasons, is a matter of considerable concern. It
is unlikely that individuals who deliver secondhand clothing for sale
by a consignment shop would expect their personal information to wind
up on a nationwide police database, accessible to police agencies
across Canada. Nor would they expect that renting a private mailbox
would result in their personal details being available in police
information systems."

It's time to carefully reconsider our increasing reliance on snoop-
and-scoop bylaws. They should only be used as a last resort when no
other options are available, and only on a case-by-case basis for the
purpose of facilitating a specific police investigation. Moreover,
controls must be instituted to ensure that any personal information
collected is used and disclosed only for the intended purpose.

Without proper measures to ensure privacy and protect legal rights,
municipalities have no business snooping in the lives of law- abiding
citizens.