British Columbia Acts Against Patriot Act

An anonymous reader writes "According to the CBC, the province of British Columbia will guard against the Patriot Act. This affects U.S.-owned companies operating in BC. Canadian subsidiaries in BC will be prohibited from giving certain information to the U.S. government."

Comments

My blog

[trajano]

I actually blogged about this in my blog

I was watching CBC news just now and they were talking about B.C. resident's medical records at risk of being exposed to other parties because of the U.S. Patriot Act because maintenance of such data was outsourced to the U.S., the medical chief of B.C. also had the gall to say its not a problem because of outsourcing (yah right, the more exact problem is cheapskates running the group who actually want to reap more profits for themselves instead of providing a better service). The U.S. has already encountered this problem from outsourcing medical transcription data to Pakistan.

Its true that outsourcing does save money, but you are putting your data at risk when bringing it outside your country. Even if the other country would have compatible laws on privacy as yours, it does not mean they cannot change them at whim (e.g. the Patriot Act by Bush's government). Governments should keep their records secure within its borders, any outsourcing of such data is inviting a breach of trust against the public. Private companies who outsource their data should have the right to be sued by the public (we may already have that) if their private information is not held properly, I know we have laws saying that corporate data on people should not be shared outside the corporation without written consent by the party involved.

If I had the power (i.e., prime minister, mayor, etc), I would ban outsourcing of work done by government agencies which involves private data or tools that manipulate such data. I include manipulation (which includes application development and transcriptions) because other countries might not have laws or standards to maintain the same level that we require as a minimum by our standards. And even if they did, like the Patriot Act, it can change at whim.

I would probably still outsource some of the reference data and tools such as postal code database maintenance, lists of parks and maps of Canada to other countries since its public information that won't affect anyone directly, though it still needs to be QAed over here. That would at least reduce our costs and menial tasks so we can work on more important things like enjoying life and having fun.

Re:My blog

[some guy I know]

because of the U.S. Patriot Act

It's not the "U.S. Patriot" Act (nor is it just the "Patriot" Act, as the blurb states); it's the "USAPATRIOT" Act.
Please use the full name.
The "USAPATRIOT" Act has nothing to do with patriotism, so calling it the "Patriot Act" or "U.S. Patriot Act" is misleading.
Personally, I pronounce it "the you sap at riot act" to avoid confusion.

Re:I am so glad to hear this!

[Bob_Robertson]

I do so wish the USA would go back inside its own borders and leave the rest of us alone.

Heck, I live in the US and feel exactly the same way.

I wish the US government would go back inside its "Ten Mile Square" own borders and leave the rest of us alone.

The GPL isn't a cancer, GOVERNMENT is.

Bob-

Residents of Vancouver (and GVRD)

[Screaming Lunatic]

Vaughn Palmer has been covering this issue extensively on Voice of BC. He interviewed the privacy commissioner a couple weeks ago. The Vancouver Sun, The Province, Global TV, BCTV, CityTV, and even the Georgia Straight have pretty much ignored this issue. I highly recommend watching VoBC. It's live on Wednesdays at 8PM, repeats on Saturdays and Sundays.

I'm still not convinced that the legislation the the government intends to pass in BC can overrule the Patriot Act. The fact that Geoff Plant, the BC Attorney General, is tyring minimize the perceived risk is a complete and utter joke.

Two hands

[phorm]

On one hand, it shows that the government is aware of the privacy risk. It also shows that they're willing to stand up the some of the US pressure on this issue and overrule the "terrorism" buzzword.

On the other hand, past shows that many such bills may be passed for good publicity, but when it comes to actually enforcing/using them it just doesn't happen.

So basically, it's going to be a case of wait-and-see... as to whether this law is strong enough to actually do something against the issue of sovereignty between mingled economies and local privacy... and as to whether or not the government is strong enough to actually enforce the laws if/when they're broken.

As a citizen of BC, Canada... I consider it at least a step in the right direction. I wish it would get more publicity so that at the least it could notify the Canadian people of the risks to our privacy due to US corporate co-mingling.