By: Lucaiah Smith-Miodownik, News Writer
Content warning: brief mention of sexual abuse of children/minors.
Canadian human rights organizations are urging the country to reject the UN convention against cybercrime treaty regarding access to online information. Despite its proposed capability as a “new tool to protect people,” organizations like Amnesty International Canada, the Centre for Free Expression, and OpenMedia expressed concerns that it will leave a “lasting detrimental impact on human rights at a global scale.”
The UN says the treaty will protect against cybercrime by allowing more collaboration on an international scale to exchange evidence and protect victims. The treaty, which would allow for greater dissemination of sensitive information across national borders “is a crucial step forward in our efforts to address crimes like online child sexual abuse, sophisticated online scams, and money laundering,” according to UN Office on Drugs and Crime executive director Ghada Waly.
According to a letter from several Canadian organizations and experts addressed to the Canadian government, the treaty would allow repressive governments “to expand their targeting, intimidation, and silencing of political opposition, activists, and human rights defenders.” The Peak spoke with Matt Hatfield, executive director at OpenMedia, a “non-profit, grassroots digital activist community” focusing on increasing “online privacy, access, and free expression.”
Hatfield said the treaty “would allow foreign governments [ . . . ] to essentially trump up charges against people in Canada and use the mechanisms created by the cybercrime treaty to attempt to extradite or at least harass them.” The letter notes that signing the treaty would “constrain Canada’s ability to act in its own interest and the interest of its citizens and people in Canada when faced with information sharing requests from other states.” It points out that the treaty would cause more data to be exchanged with foreign governments automatically. It also adds that the treaty gives “license to a problematic trend where states use cybercrime regimes to label any online conduct a cybercrime, resulting in repression of online dissent.”
“It would allow foreign governments [ . . . ] to essentially trump up charges against people in Canada, and use the mechanisms created by the cybercrime treaty to attempt to extradite or at least harass them.” — Matt Hatfield, executive director, OpenMedia
In a recent press release, Hatfield said “Canada is already failing to protect our most vulnerable communities against transnational threats.” He told The Peak that “the targeting of people with ties to India and people with ties to China and Canada are both huge ongoing problems.” He said the proposed treaty “would enable further harassment, officially sanctioned harassment of people in those communities.”
For example, as reported by Global News, Indian diplomats have been linked to “dozens of violent crimes across Canada that targeted opponents of the Modi government.” Narenda Modi, the Prime Minister of India, has faced criticism for his authoritarian approach. Hatfield also referenced allegations of assassinations in Canada tied to the Indian government, as well as evidence suggesting the government of China has attempted to influence Canadian elections in 2019 and 2021.
Oppressive governments could use a treaty like this to “try to criminalize critics of theirs” by framing their actions as “threats to public morals,” he added. “Under the current language of the cybercrime treaty, some of those folk could easily be wrapped into a supposed cybercrime threat.” Should Canada sign this treaty, Hatfield said the country would be forced “to cooperate with law enforcement in states that are much less respectful of both their own citizens and anyone who enters from around the globe.”
He also said the treaty would need to list “a much tighter, more specific list of relevant crimes” for its adoption to be considered. “Even then though,” he clarified, “I would worry quite a bit about tying Canada’s hands.” He said a state could “fabricate evidence against someone” and “Canada should be able to assess the credibility of that evidence.
“Canada is one of the most multicultural countries in the world [ . . . ] we’re a highly targeted country for that reason by some of these autocratic countries, more so than the US or the EU,” he continued. “We really worry about the unique vulnerabilities of people in Canada to these data requests, that may not apply in the same way to residents of other democracies.”
