January 21, 2008 VIA EMAIL (Prentice.J@parl.gc.ca and Verner.J@parl…

January 21, 2008

VIA EMAIL (Prentice.J@parl.gc.ca and Verner.J@parl.gc.ca)

The Honourable Josée Verner, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages
25 Eddy St.
Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0M5

- and to -

The Honourable Jim Prentice, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Industry
5th floor, West Tower
C.D. Howe Building
235 Queen St.
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0H5

Re: Copyright Reform and Canada's Privacy Community

We are a group of Canada's leading public-interest oriented organizations and academic privacy
and security experts concerned with how changes to Canada's copyright laws will implicate
privacy, security, freedom of expression and civil liberties in Canada.

This is not the first time that Canada's privacy community has spoken out on this issue. In May,
2006, we wrote to your predecessors in office to express our concern that proposed changes to
Canada's copyright laws could have a significant impact on Canadians' privacy interests. In that
letter, we enclosed a short Background Paper that outlined these concerns. That letter and the
Background Paper continue to be available to you and to the public on our website at
www.intellectualprivacy.ca, and we urge you to review their contents.

Nor are we the only parties interested in Canadians' privacy rights to reach out to you on this
issue. Last week, Jennifer Stoddart, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, wrote to you to
express her office's view on the potential privacy implications of proposed changes to the
Copyright Act. This letter follows the Commissioner's previous correspondence, addressed to
your predecessors in office, and dated May 17, 2006. At that time, the information and privacy
commissioners of Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario also wrote to your predecessors to
express their concerns with respect to the privacy implications of copyright legislation.

These communications, taken together, represent a remarkable consensus among Canadian
privacy experts as to the privacy and security implications of proposed changes to Canada's
copyright law. These concerns implicate a number of distinct proposed changes to current
Canadian copyright law, including:

 · The creation of "para-copyright", or "anti-circumvention laws", that may impose penalties
   on Canadians for circumventing technological protection measures that themselves may
   violate privacy laws and pose security risks;
 · The imposition on ISPs to collect and store subscriber data at the behest and without the
   knowledge or consent of the subscriber; and
 · The reversal of copyright ownership rules attaching to photographs, which will undermine
   Canadians' ability to stop unexpected and privacy-invasive "artistic" uses of photographs
   bought and paid for by the subject.

We observe that these concerns are being born out in the marketplace. Consider anti-
circumvention laws and technological protection measures: the 2005 example of the Sony BMG
"rootkit", noted in the Privacy Commissioner's recent letter, is only the most notorious example
of the privacy and security concerns technological protection measures implicate. More recently,
The Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), a signatory to this letter,
conducted a study of Digital Rights Management ("DRM") technologies present in the Canadian
marketplace. The study, titled "Digital Rights Management Technologies & Consumer Privacy",
concludes (at p. ii) that "Fundamental privacy-based criticisms of DRM are well-founded: we
observed tracking of usage habits, surfing habits, and technical data." The study is available
online at .

We applaud your government's decision to delay introduction of a copyright bill until you are
satisfied that you have crafted legislation that strikes the right balance among stakeholder
interests. We are also pleased that Minister Prentice specifically identified Canadian consumers
as stakeholders in Canadian copyright policy. The Canadian privacy community supports
balanced copyright law. To achieve this goal, we suggest that the Canadian government consult
with experts on this issue. The members of this group have offered their expertise, and do so
again. The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has again offered her assistance to government
copyright policy makers. We urge you to avail yourselves of these offers.

We look forward to working with you to design balanced copyright laws that respect Canadians'
privacy rights.

Sincerely,

"Canada's Privacy Community"

(full list of signatories is attached)

cc:      Susan Bincoletto, Director General, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch
         Industry Canada
         (bincoletto.susan@ic.gc.ca)

         Barbara Motzney, Director General, Copyright Policy
         Department of Canadian Heritage
         (motzney.barbara@pch.gc.ca)




                                               -2-
                              Canada's Privacy Community

Association for Media and Technology in Education in Canada

Atlantic Provinces Library Association

BC Civil Liberties Association

BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association

BC Library Association

Colin Bennett, Professor of Political Science, University of Victoria

Canadian Association of University Teachers

Canadian Federation of Students

Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic

Canadian Library Association

CLUE : The Canadian Association for Open Source

Consumers Association of Canada

Electronic Frontier Canada

Electronic Frontier Foundation

FLORA.org

Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law, University of Ottawa

Marsha Hanen, Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, University of Victoria

Ian Kerr, Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law & Technology, University of Ottawa

Library Association of Alberta

Online Rights Canada

Ontario Library Association

Bruce Phillips, Former Privacy Commissioner of Canada (1991-2000)

Privaterra

Pubic Interest Advocacy Centre
Teresa Scassa, Canada Research Chair in Information Law, University of Ottawa

Val Steeves, Professor, Faculty of Criminology, University of Ottawa

Paul Van Oorschot, Canada Research Chair in Network and Software Security, at Carleton
University