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19-Year-Old Archivist Charged For Downloading Freedom-of-Information Releases (www.cbc.ca)
Ichijo writes: According to CBC News, a Canadian teen "has been charged with 'unauthorized use of a computer,' which carries a possible 10-year prison sentence, for downloading approximately 7,000 freedom-of-information releases. The provincial government says about 250 of those contain Nova Scotians' sensitive personal information."
"When he was around eight [...] his Grade 3 class adopted an animal at a shelter, receiving an electronic adoption certificate," reports CBC. "That lead to a discovery on the classroom computer. 'The website had a number at the end, and I was able to change the last digit of the number to a different number and was able to see a certificate for someone else's animal that they adopted,' he said. 'I thought that was interesting.' The teenager's current troubles arose because he used the same trick on Nova Scotia's freedom-of-information portal, downloading about 7,000 freedom-of-information requests." The teen is estimated to have around 30 terabytes of online data on his hard drives, which equates to "millions" of webpages. "He usually copies online forums such as 4chan and Reddit, where posts are either quickly erased or can become difficult to locate."
"When he was around eight [...] his Grade 3 class adopted an animal at a shelter, receiving an electronic adoption certificate," reports CBC. "That lead to a discovery on the classroom computer. 'The website had a number at the end, and I was able to change the last digit of the number to a different number and was able to see a certificate for someone else's animal that they adopted,' he said. 'I thought that was interesting.' The teenager's current troubles arose because he used the same trick on Nova Scotia's freedom-of-information portal, downloading about 7,000 freedom-of-information requests." The teen is estimated to have around 30 terabytes of online data on his hard drives, which equates to "millions" of webpages. "He usually copies online forums such as 4chan and Reddit, where posts are either quickly erased or can become difficult to locate."
As an Atlantic Canadian this makes me unbelievably sad.
They just traumatized a family because the government was incompetent. Is this truly where we're going?
They fucking interrogated his 13 year old sister?! I mean the documentation was fucking public; THIS IS HOW THEY CHOOSE TO HANDLE THEIR INCOMPENTENCY?
PM is outright saying he stole sensitive information; 15 officers raided the house.
Atlantic Canada is a pretty quiet place, and there's already enough sketchiness about how the general population feels about our police force; they're really not helping their case. I swear if they (Gov. & police force, RCMP I presume) don't get any repercussions for this I'll be legitimately scared of continuing to live in this country. This is beyond fucking ridiculous. I mean 10 fucking years in prison??
Yeah; I'm fucking angry, sorry.
I tend to rant.
...of criminal stupidity.
I'm from Luxembourg and my chamber of representatives used the same 'security system' (people can't possibly guess numbers) and was also breached, obviously, since this 'problem' is known since 1991 or so, when the worldwide web was invented.
Yes, Data Protection Acts like the EU GDPR are there to ensure that PII (Personally Identifiable Information) aren't released publicly. However this doesn't mean it wont accidentally be or cant be released. The Canadian govt was silly to let this information to be released under FOI requests (I work with FOI requests in the UK, you're supposed to ensure any PII stripped out, GDPR/DPA trumps FOI and there are strict penalties for non-compliance) but if that fails that doesn't give you carte blanche to copy it, data protection laws still apply.
/. Mah Freeedums nutters but it will be more accurate, this will go to court, the Canadian will explain why he was doing what he was doing and the judge will order him to delete the records that contain PII and that will be the end of it. No jail, no fines, just a Canadian judge ordering a Canadian to adhere to the Canadian laws. chances are the guy didn't even know that the PII was there before he started.
However I'm going to make a prediction that wont be popular with the
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The government was in breach of PIPEDA, though I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know if the law applies to them. The documents are called "Freedom of Information" requests. If you find one through the search function, you can download it. A reasonable person would have concluded this was public information. The documents being numbered sequentially does reinforce this impression.
There was no obvious way for him to know that some of the "Freedom of Information" requests were intended to be restricted. You can't report something you don't know is wrong. Nobody wants to be the collateral damage from some larger party externalizing its incompetence or laziness. This is that, and it's wrong.
The kid was criminally stupid in archiving the data instead of working towards fixing the problem
This tripe got modded to 5?! fixing the problem wasn't his responsibility and while his actions might've been distasteful, thinking them to be "criminal" either requires:
A) A complete lack of understanding of digital communications, or...
B) You to be a gov't shill, or...C) An utter fucking moron.