Pirate Party of Canada Evidence Based Policy Making

For Immediate Release

  Fox Creek, Alberta - October 16 - It came to light late last week that the Conservative Government intends to require VPN providers to forward takedown notices they receive from copyright holders to their customers [1]. Furthermore, VPN providers will now be forced to log  customer actions for at least 6 months. Both requirements are set to kill off the Canadian VPN industry. VPN services are sought for the added privacy they provide  while online. By requiring VPN providers to keep logs of customer actions, an advantage the Canadian VPN providers had over their international competitors will be lost [2]. At the same time the requirement to forward takedown notices will put an administrative strain on VPN providers as many are small businesses, often run by a single person or small group of people. Google, while not a VPN  provider, receives over a million takedown notices per month [3]. While VPN providers will receive substantially less there are no safeguards in place to keep a virtual avalanche of takedown notices from appearing. Furthermore, the U.S. have had many unfounded searches, abuses and spying committed by copyright trolls, and this change will exacerbate the situation and bring U.S. style abuses to Canada. VPNs remains one of the few tools that can be used as a safeguard against unchecked spying by non-transparent and oppressive governments. This  mitigation tool is worth protecting to counter the ever increasing threat to privacy (an essential safeguard for democracy). This threat have been made worse by breach on internet security imposed by the NSA and its “5 eyes” spying allies. We ask the Canadian government to show
their commitment against not spying on Canadians, and protection of consumer’s interests by not imposing such a damaging law.
  “It is amazing that the Conservatives would go ahead and propose a measure so detrimental to Canadian businesses. It is especially jarring when juxtaposed with their recent consumer-friendly throne speech,” says James Wilson, Leader of the Pirate Party of Canada. The VPN industry has seen impressive growth since the revelations regarding NSA spying. The Conservatives, by weakening VPN privacy measures, have essentially said Canadian businesses cannot benefit from this growth. “This looks like a hastily made plan that does not understand and appreciate the intrinsic value of the technology. It only benefits copyright trolls who does not operate under the democratic principle of due process,” says Ric Lim, Party Secretary. This plan could cause tremendous harm to open nature of the internet and the interests of consumers. One proposal that the Conservatives have not expressed interest in is having copyright holders pay a fee to VPN providers to handle the takedown notices. The Pirate Party of Canada supports this idea as a means to prevent frivolous takedown notices. However, the party cannot support the keeping of customer logs as to have such a system makes VPN services providers of a false sense of
security rather than actual security. More data retention also exposes Canadian to higher risk of fraud in the event of a system breach, which seems to happen at a higher frequency nowadays (e.g. Sony and other large corporations with substantial IT departments). The Canadian Government has launched consultations on these changes [4]. The Pirate Party of Canada urges everyone to make the government aware of the negative effects the proposed
changes will have on Canadian businesses.
  The Pirate Party of Canada is a federal political party focused on thoughtful information policy reform, genuine democracy, civil liberties, and the freedom of the Internet. You can find out more online at www.pirateparty.ca
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 Media Contacts: [email protected]
 [1] http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6967/125/
 [2] https://www.bestvpn.com/blog/5351/5-best-vpns-in-canada/
 [3] http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121211/16152021352/dmca-copyright-takedowns-togoogle-increased-10x-just-past-six-months.shtml
 [4] http://www.scribd.com/doc/175287948/Consultation-Letter-Lettre-de-Consultation

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