Canada Quietly Offering Sanctuary To Data From the US

davecb writes "The Toronto Star's lead article today is Canada courting U.S. web giants in wake of NSA spy scandal, an effort to convince them their customer data is safer here. This follows related moves like Cisco moving R&D to Toronto. Industry Canada will neither confirm nor deny that European and U.S. companies are negotiating to move confidential data away from the U.S. This critically depends on recent blocking legislation to get around cases like U.S. v. Bank of Nova Scotia, where U.S. courts 'extradited' Canadian bank records to the U.S. Contrary to Canadian law, you understand ..."

Comments

Implying Canada isn't an accomplice

[Anonymous Coward]

They've been doing intelligence cooperation with the US for ages, why would they be any more trustworthy?

Re:Implying Canada isn't an accomplice

[scamper_22]

As a Canadian, I always find our ability to blame everything on America quite interesting.

Anything that is not some liberal utopian ideal is BECAUSE AMERICA.

We talk about drug laws in Canada... and it's those damn Americans who force us into the war on drugs. Of course Canada's history isn't full of old conservative white folks who feared Chinese workers and their opium.

We talk about sexuality and its the damn American influence that prevents us from being a nudist paradise.
We don't have any history of conservatism or banning Madonna for too much sexuality. All that must come from the US.

We talk of wars and it's always those damn Americans and their war machine. No hint of Canada's history of war.

And yes, when it comes to spying or betraying its own citizens... it's always those darn Americans. Canada didn't have anything to do with Japanese internment because Canada has human rights. The US doesn't. Canada has never had to spy on its citizens. Surely Canada didn't spy on the various Quebec separatist movement historically.

At the end of the day, it's as if people don't realize that historically Canada and the USA are very similar. Both led by old Europeans. Sure there are differences. And much has changed post WW2. But still remarkably the same.

Meaningless

[dreamchaser]

This is completely meaningless as long as any data has to traverse any network in the US. For that matter, I highly doubt that Canada or any other US ally won't actually cooperate with the NSA. This is nothing but a marketing move on Canada's part.

Re:Meaningless

[Charliemopps]

Its all about the perception of their customers. US territory is tainted in the eyes of the world now.

Canada is already America's bitch.

[robot_love]

Our banks will release all personal information to US law enforcement, even though this directly contravenes our Constitution.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadian-banks-to-be-compelled-to-share-clients-info-with-u-s-1.2437975

Re:Canada is already America's bitch.

[MrKevvy]

Canada also assisted the NSA in spying including spying on attendees at the G20 summit in Toronto in 2010.

As this is common knowledge, I'm skeptical that any entity would trust Canada more than the U.S. with its confidential data. I certainly wouldn't.

Re:You Know They'll Roll Over!

[binarylarry]

Blame Canada!

U.S. courts 'extradited' Canadian bank records? BS

[Anonymous Coward]

That court case did nothing of the sort - it was a court case against a local US bank subsidiary asking for records of other subsidiaries in the Bahamas and Cayman Islands.

The real problem is the coming US FATCA law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Account_Tax_Compliance_Act

This US law requires foreign banks to provide information about accounts held by Americans, or ELSE.

Canada is not generally regarded as a tax haven - there is no bank secrecy here, no secret corporate ownership and Canada isn't a low-tax jurisdiction. Our taxes are higher than most of the USA.

There is a Canada-US tax treaty, and generally speaking US citizens living in Canada don't have to pay tax to the USA since they get an IRS deduction for the taxes they pay to Canada (they don't get taxed twice on the same income).

Under US law, all US citizens have to file with the IRS every year, even if they live in a foreign country and owe nothing in taxes.

However, for a Canadian bank to provide information about US customers to the IRS (absent a crime or court order) violates Canadian privacy law. So Canadian banks are in a very difficult position:

- comply with FATCA and break Canadian law
- get permission from their US customers to hand over info to the IRS
- don't do business with US citizens living in Canada (of which there are about a million)

Re:You Know They'll Roll Over!

[Vanderhoth]

Yeah, I'm Canadian. Canada has a pretty good "sharing" relationship with the US. It's a safe bet that if data is stored here we're pretty much just going to hand it to any US government org. that asks for it. I'd be willing to bet this is a scheme cooked up by the NSA because they know Canada will just roll over and hand the info back to them so they can just continue on business as usual. We're not really the confrontational types up here.

Welcome to your data

[alexhs]

American citizens, come and host your data on canadian soil !
Therefore, it will technically be foreign data.
Therefore, the NSA will be able to spy on it without trespassing any law regulating spying on its own citizens.
Thanks for your cooperation.

Re:You Know They'll Roll Over!

[MouseR]

I think it would be worse for US to store their data in Canada because at that point, NSA is just spying on another country rather than in their own turf. Something that is in high scrutiny at the moment.

Re:Crazy

[Nerdfest]

In other countries they must actually do 'spying' though, as opposed to just forcing companies to hand over data under threat.

Re:You Know They'll Roll Over!

[BobMcD]

It's actually worse than just them rolling over.

See, Canadian operations are firmly within the jurisdiction of the NSA. So moving out of country makes you more hackable, not less.

Re:You Know They'll Roll Over!

[mrclisdue]

You know the Canadians will roll over on you, eh?

Please, sir (I say "sir", and I apologise if you are a "ma'am", ma'am), but on behalf of all Canadians, I urge you to consider that it is "politeness, pleasantries, civility, and common courtesy" that you misinterpret as "rolling over".

We simply rush to the front and open the door for you, sir/ma'am.

I hope I haven't offended you in any way, and I apologise for taking your time.

Thank you, and all the best, Godspeed.

companies dont care about customer data.

[nimbius]

The argument is premised on the idea that Americas largest multinational corporations are somehow so divorced from the legislative and governance process of the United States as to need to seek asylum in a foreign country.

companies only care about customer data if consumer market research data indicates negative shifts in earnings as a result of their inability to assauage customers of the validity, sanctity and security of their data. A prime example is the Target scandal recently. the cost to shore up security was probably much greater than the cost to issue apologies in the media. Target further mitigated the impact by using weasel words like "may have" or "possibly" when describing the outcome of their data breech. This in turn led the financial companies beholden to the cardholders to issue, of course, similar statements with a key advisory to "watch" your credit card, not to replace it which while effective would have been vastly more expensive for the financial company.

when companies face any real backlash from their customers, they legislate their way around it through the appropriate channels. AT&T demanded immunity from Bush wiretapping and received it. had they cared about your data, they would have fought the government to eliminate warrantless surveillance of this kind. But the law is ever on their side as they are the ones who craft it. Verizon lobbied extensively for stricter laws protecting arbitration clauses. They did it in response to a string of class action lawsuits related to overbilling customers. had they cared about the letter of the law, they would have made major changes and improvements to their billing system that prevented the plaintiffs from suffering the ridiculous mischarges in the first place.

Re:You Know They'll Roll Over!

[wonkey_monkey]

Thank you

Thank you kindly.

Re:You Know They'll Roll Over!

[Registered Coward v2]

I think it would be worse for US to store their data in Canada because at that point, NSA is just spying on another country rather than in their own turf. Something that is in high scrutiny at the moment.

Excellant point. Data stored abroad would not necessarily be afforded the same legal protections as data stored in the US. Even given the recent revelations companies should take that into consideration as well.

Totally irrelevant if you're a "US company"...

[BUL2294]

So unless Google, Facebook, and the like are no longer going to be US-based companies (which I doubt will happen, especially given that they are publicly traded), and decide to shut down all operations in the US, things like the Patriot Act & wiretapping laws would still compel these companies to hand over data, despite the data center sitting on Canadian soil--or anywhere else in the world... Remember that Microsoft refused to answer questions about whether law enforcement had backdoors into Skype calls, after M$ picked up Skype. Pre-takeover, when Skype was an Estonian company, US-required backdoors didn't exist & couldn't be compelled, so the NSA had to hack to get the data...

Re:You Know They'll Roll Over!

[mdielmann]

The difference is, when your data is stored in the US, the US can pass laws saying that the data has to be handed over, and the companies holding it for you can't tell you. If it's in Canada, there are two options.

First, Canada rolls over and requires the data be sent to the US. Of course, we don't currently have laws to require that, or for us to be silent about it if it does happen. Granted, we have the notwithstanding clause, which allows plenty of leeway, but not so much that they can emplace gag orders or warrantless searches.

Second, the Canadian company holding your data knowingly and actively does all it can to stop the unlawful access of your data, and responds if there are attempted breaches. Note that this will not and can not happen in the US as things currently stand.

At worst, it will be no different from having your data in the US. At best, you may have actual corporate security.