The federal Conservative government says its controversial Bill C-30 is necessary to protect children from online predators and pornographers, but critics say it allows police an unprecedented ability to spy on Canadians’ online activities.

The Bill, which has been dubbed the “Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act” by the government, would require telecommunications service providers to give police a person’s name, address, phone numbers, e-mail address and Internet Protocol (IP) address – which identifies a person on a computer – upon request and without a warrant. Companies would also be forced to adapt their equipment so that authorities could monitor the actions of subscribers, though authorities would have to obtain a judicial warrant before they could track the online or cellular phone activities of people suspected of committing a crime.

The legislation has the support of a number of law enforcement agencies and provincial and territorial attorneys-general, but has received a broad and furious backlash from critics, including the Opposition Parties in Parliament, civil liberty associations, Canada’s assistant privacy commissioner, and others. Even some government MPs expressed concerns with the implications of the Bill, and the backlash ahs prompted the Conservatives to promise the legislation will go before a House of Commons committee to consider revisions.

“There are some concerns – constituents have called me – and some of them are a bit unfounded, but that’s why the Bill is going to be before a committee, and those concerns will be brought up,” said Bob Zimmer, Conservative MP for Prince George-Peace River, adding he does not sit on that committee so he will not be privy to what specific amendments may be tabled.

However, he maintained the legislation is necessary to protect children from online sexual predators.

“What’s getting lost in this whole debate that’s in the media is that the intent of the legislation is to crack down on child pornographers, it’s really targeted to deal with criminals and crime,” said Zimmer.

According to a 2003 Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect published by the Public Health Agency of Canada, an estimated 15,227 child maltreatment investigations, or 3.20 investigations per 1,000 children, involved allegations of sexual abuse as either the primary or secondary category of maltreatment, with 21 per cent of those investigations being substantiated, and another 15 per cent remaining suspected.

Sexual exploitation – situations where an adult sexually exploits a

child for purposes of financial gain or other profit, including pornography and prostitution – was investigated in 1,508 cases and substantiated in 19 per cent of those cases. The study did not specifically include statistics on online forms of child sexual abuse.

“There’s a misconception out there that officers or agents will not need a warrant in order to do an investigation on certain crimes, but that is not the truth,” said Zimmer. “That officer is still required to get a warrant to do any investigation, especially with regard to people’s online activities.”

One of the critics of the Bill is Jeremy Cote, owner of a computer sales and service company in Fort Nelson, and a candidate in last year’s federal election for the Pirate Party of Canada, a political party specifically focused on issues of Internet neutrality and privacy.

“It’s problematic when you consider treating something that’s online differently that you would treat it if it was in real life,” he said. “If the authorities decided they needed some information from me in ‘real life’ – the offline world – they have to go through the proper channels to get warrants, and that’s kind of how it is online, too, but with C-30 what they are saying is, ‘that’s not important, we will just get whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want, and about whomever we want, without any due cause or process.”

“We wouldn’t stand for that in the offline world, why is that okay for online stuff? It’s absolutely not, it’s an invasion of privacy, and it’s basically giving authorities – government and police – far more power than they need to do their jobs,” he added.

Cote said law enforcement already has tools at its disposal to monitor and track online predators and pornographers, and he said the issue isn’t that they shouldn’t have that ability, but that it should be done with judicial oversight.

“Nobody is saying they shouldn’t be able to monitor online activities, what they are saying is they shouldn’t be able to arbitrarily get information about them and monitor them without due process and just cause,” he said.

He said the legislation does not reflect the high value that Canadians put on privacy, and is actually hypocritical coming from a federal government that also goes to great lengths to protect the public’s privacy in other areas.

“In my computer business, I have had the opportunity to do some work with entities that are government funded, and the incredible lengths the government mandates they go to in order to protect personal data, even names of people, it’s overboard almost, yet they are asking to exactly the opposite with this Bill,” said Cote. “It doesn’t make any sense, and it doesn’t go along with who we are as Canadians.”

The provincial Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General could not be reached for comment.