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As a resident of Ontario I'm extremely troubled for several reasons. 1. This shouldn't have happened, cops should have known better. 2. It shouldn't have been

As a resident of Ontario I'm extremely troubled for several reasons. 1. This shouldn't have happened, cops should have known better. 2. It shouldn't have been possible for this to happen, the design & implementation should have prevented this from occurring. 3. Nothing will come of it. A number of years ago police in Ontario illegally arrested & detained protesters at the G20 summit. After years of litigation some people got a small amount of money, and no one was held responsible.

marcinzm 6y ago
>1. This shouldn't have happened, cops should have known better. They know that they won't be punished for it in any way and it helps whatever KPIs they get measured on. So it's logical for them to take advantage of the data due to the incentive structure in play.
- preinheimer 6y ago
  I think you're making a good point. Their departments are incentivizing catching "Bad guys" not following the rules. So we can only ever expect them to optimize for catching more bad guys.
  - cies 6y ago
    And bad also includes those committed "crimes" for which there's not even a victim. The law book is the main reason why the police are such a problem. Same with all law that makes police (and politicians) invincible to repercussions: the law is the main reason for the broken system. Why is the law so broken? Well, I argue because politics are broken (they should update/fix the law). The democracies don't actually serve the masses, but the rich elite.
_fat_santa 6y ago
> 2. It shouldn't have been possible for this to happen, the design & implementation should have prevented this from occurring. This is my sticking point. Technical implementation details aside, is there no policy that prevents Police from accessing what is essentially a medical record. As an American this screams HIPPA VIOLATION to me
- icegreentea2 6y ago
  As article outlines, the provincial government passed an emergency order to allow police access to this information. It's definitely a PHI violation in normal circumstances.
  - gruez 6y ago
    >As article outlines, the provincial government passed an emergency order to allow police access to this information What was the reasoning behind it? So police can raid/arrest covid-19 patients?
    - boomboomsubban 6y ago
      So police can determine if they've come in contact with someone who is contagious.
Shivetya 6y ago
1 and 3 are a given if you cannot make point 2 nearly insurmountable to accomplish. Databases and rules governing their use should be so difficult to circumvent that there can be no accidental violation of the rules thereby insuring every such occurrence is purposeful. Of course all this would need to be backed by penalties as specified for violations at the time the entire process was implemented. The only way to guarantee government won't abuse data is to make it public that any occurrence carries automatic penalties and full public disclosure.
boomboomsubban 6y ago
1 and 2 are a lot of the reason people are fine with invasions of their privacy. They have a misguided belief that those with access to their private data are generally trustworthy, upstanding citizens who wouldn't misuse their access, and that even the few that would abuse their access would be stopped by some check ending them to prove they had a legal need to access the data. This is never the case. Government workers are as likely to let their curiosity get the better of them, ignoring those that act maliciously, and there is very little incentive to making sure that access is only granted when necessary.
tonyarkles 6y ago
> A number of years ago police in Ontario illegally arrested & detained protesters at the G20 summit. After years of litigation some people got a small amount of money, and no one was held responsible. Not only was no one held responsible, the chief of police at the time is now our federal minister for public safety...
microcolonel 6y ago
Through various channels I've seen a lot of stuff like this happen, it is the norm especially in Ontario. There is no real accountability in our Provincial government, and the ministries tend to do more or less as they please, and enable it retroactively through the legislature if it looks like they may get sued. They're not accountable for their budget approvals, or to follow their own regulations, so the main thing limiting them is whether the public is familiar enough with what their actions mean to be disgusted.
II2II 6y ago
> 1. This shouldn't have happened, cops should have known better. Some did. From the article: "York Region police said they asked the province to revoke access to the database after an internal review found the risks associated with accessing personal health information outweighed any benefits." Toronto police likewise didn't access the database. Their rationale isn't so much privacy related, but it does cite a major problem with databases (the accuracy of data). At the end of the day, it is the government's responsibility to say no. While some organizations are professionally run and consider the implications of their actions, some aren't or don't.
- interestica 6y ago
  But in Thunder Bay: "Thunder Bay police accessed the personal health information in the database more than 14,800x — a rate of access 10x higher than the provincial average — even though the area reported a total of just 100 COVID-19 cases while the database was active. "
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Ironically, this could be (but probably was not) evidence of a better tradeoff between privacy and protection. Imagine if a computer system were integrated with first-responder dispatch systems that cross referenced every address dispatched against the database and reported only the presence/absence of any positive case to dispatchers, discarding all other information. Such a system would have vastly more queries to the database but, implemented as described, would be much less troublesome to me than other, manual uses of the records.
    - interestica 6y ago
      You're right. # of database queries certainly isn't evidence of misuse. But, it is highly suspect when it's being utilized this heavily in a city noted for it's high crime rate. I suspect that the police are faced with big challenges there and suddenly had this large new database to access... "For the third consecutive year - and the fourth time in the last five years - Thunder Bay was the homicide capital of Canada in 2018." https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/tbay-murder-capital-canada-2018-1.5220828 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/tbay-murder-capit...
interestica 6y ago
> A number of years ago police in Ontario illegally arrested & detained protesters at the G20 summit. After years of litigation some people got a small amount of money, and no one was held responsible. Also, Nobody was arrested. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/06/27/adam-nobody-and-the-video-clip-that-changed-everything.html https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/06/27/adam-nobody-and-...
- gord288 6y ago
  And the chief of police responsible for these abuses is now the federal Minister for Public Safety. Good times.
owenwil 6y ago
I also live in Ontario (Toronto) and was struck by how practically 0 of police I've seen here over the last few months have been wearing masks – even when they came doorknocking in my neighborhood about a theft that happened on the street. They had the ability to look up things like this, but I bet they weren't even taking the precautions when they had that data.
wjnc 6y ago
I agree and have a general distrust of public servants and the environment they work in. There are No repercussions (in my locale, NLD) for breaking the law as a public servant. Even when the statutes are quite broad (like knowingly infringing on a law or the constitution by a very senior public servant or knowingly holding money for public benefit that shouldn't be held / restituted) there are literally zero prosecutions of these events. And I've gone quite deep even contacting the police agency especially created for such things (they don't even track complaints against these statutes) and searching the public database with judgements. The only thing we do is persecute clear graft. So the worst thing that could happen left is one government office getting fined by another, which is somewhat disappointing. It's taxes afteral going around. All I have for my deep-dive is a professor agreeing with me (hey N=2 beats N=1).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
michael1999 6y ago
Const. Babak Andalib-Goortani was convicted of assault with a weapon but got off with 75 hours of community service, and Supt. Fenton received a reprimand for arresting 600 people without cause and keeping them in the rain, or in wire cages without facilities, and lost 30 vacation days. So yup.
skrtskrt 6y ago
Must be nice to live in a country where you see an example of this and even have a glimmer of hope something would be done about it. Or even a glimmer of hope that “cops should have known better”. Or even a single time there were even minor consequences for illegally detaining protestors. This would just be approximately example number 10 million of this happening in the US.
VoodooJuJu 6y ago
>Nothing will come of it To me, this is the most disappointing thing, that people will still continue to use devices that spy on them, even when they know that the device is spying on them. Many will say "we need better laws! punish those police!". Why even give them the opportunity to use your data maliciously in the first place? Why place all that trust into a complex system, a system with so many points of failure? It's inherently untrustworthy. "Oh, we won't use your data for malicious purposes, promise ;)". All it takes is one bad actor to inherit that system to cause problems. Again, don't even give them the opportunity; don't forfeit your freedom to begin with. Delete your facebook. Delete your twitter. Get rid of your spyphone. Breathe the free air again.
rapind 6y ago
I know most cops are good guys, yada, yada, but there’s just something wrong with the culture and leadership that’s utterly boneheaded. They were also secretly using clearview in Ontario.
sieabahlpark 6y ago
> 1. This shouldn't have happened, cops should have known better. If only something could have been done so that they didn't have the data at all in the first place... Hard to break the law if there is no data to use.
snarf21 6y ago
This is just another piece of proof that power corrupts. Morons like AG Barr want back doors they promise not to use without a warrant. Anything that can be used, will be used. This is a fact and will not change.

marcinzm 6y ago

>1. This shouldn't have happened, cops should have known better. They know that they won't be punished for it in any way and it helps whatever KPIs they get measured on. So it's logical for them to take advantage of the data due to the incentive structure in play.

preinheimer 6y ago
I think you're making a good point. Their departments are incentivizing catching "Bad guys" not following the rules. So we can only ever expect them to optimize for catching more bad guys.
- cies 6y ago
  And bad also includes those committed "crimes" for which there's not even a victim. The law book is the main reason why the police are such a problem. Same with all law that makes police (and politicians) invincible to repercussions: the law is the main reason for the broken system. Why is the law so broken? Well, I argue because politics are broken (they should update/fix the law). The democracies don't actually serve the masses, but the rich elite.

_fat_santa 6y ago

> 2. It shouldn't have been possible for this to happen, the design & implementation should have prevented this from occurring. This is my sticking point. Technical implementation details aside, is there no policy that prevents Police from accessing what is essentially a medical record. As an American this screams HIPPA VIOLATION to me

icegreentea2 6y ago
As article outlines, the provincial government passed an emergency order to allow police access to this information. It's definitely a PHI violation in normal circumstances.
- gruez 6y ago
  >As article outlines, the provincial government passed an emergency order to allow police access to this information What was the reasoning behind it? So police can raid/arrest covid-19 patients?
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    So police can determine if they've come in contact with someone who is contagious.

Shivetya 6y ago

1 and 3 are a given if you cannot make point 2 nearly insurmountable to accomplish. Databases and rules governing their use should be so difficult to circumvent that there can be no accidental violation of the rules thereby insuring every such occurrence is purposeful. Of course all this would need to be backed by penalties as specified for violations at the time the entire process was implemented. The only way to guarantee government won't abuse data is to make it public that any occurrence carries automatic penalties and full public disclosure.

boomboomsubban 6y ago

1 and 2 are a lot of the reason people are fine with invasions of their privacy. They have a misguided belief that those with access to their private data are generally trustworthy, upstanding citizens who wouldn't misuse their access, and that even the few that would abuse their access would be stopped by some check ending them to prove they had a legal need to access the data. This is never the case. Government workers are as likely to let their curiosity get the better of them, ignoring those that act maliciously, and there is very little incentive to making sure that access is only granted when necessary.

tonyarkles 6y ago

> A number of years ago police in Ontario illegally arrested & detained protesters at the G20 summit. After years of litigation some people got a small amount of money, and no one was held responsible. Not only was no one held responsible, the chief of police at the time is now our federal minister for public safety...

microcolonel 6y ago

Through various channels I've seen a lot of stuff like this happen, it is the norm especially in Ontario. There is no real accountability in our Provincial government, and the ministries tend to do more or less as they please, and enable it retroactively through the legislature if it looks like they may get sued. They're not accountable for their budget approvals, or to follow their own regulations, so the main thing limiting them is whether the public is familiar enough with what their actions mean to be disgusted.

II2II 6y ago

> 1. This shouldn't have happened, cops should have known better. Some did. From the article: "York Region police said they asked the province to revoke access to the database after an internal review found the risks associated with accessing personal health information outweighed any benefits." Toronto police likewise didn't access the database. Their rationale isn't so much privacy related, but it does cite a major problem with databases (the accuracy of data). At the end of the day, it is the government's responsibility to say no. While some organizations are professionally run and consider the implications of their actions, some aren't or don't.

interestica 6y ago
But in Thunder Bay: "Thunder Bay police accessed the personal health information in the database more than 14,800x — a rate of access 10x higher than the provincial average — even though the area reported a total of just 100 COVID-19 cases while the database was active. "
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Ironically, this could be (but probably was not) evidence of a better tradeoff between privacy and protection. Imagine if a computer system were integrated with first-responder dispatch systems that cross referenced every address dispatched against the database and reported only the presence/absence of any positive case to dispatchers, discarding all other information. Such a system would have vastly more queries to the database but, implemented as described, would be much less troublesome to me than other, manual uses of the records.
  - interestica 6y ago
    You're right. # of database queries certainly isn't evidence of misuse. But, it is highly suspect when it's being utilized this heavily in a city noted for it's high crime rate. I suspect that the police are faced with big challenges there and suddenly had this large new database to access... "For the third consecutive year - and the fourth time in the last five years - Thunder Bay was the homicide capital of Canada in 2018." https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/tbay-murder-capital-canada-2018-1.5220828 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/tbay-murder-capit...

interestica 6y ago

> A number of years ago police in Ontario illegally arrested & detained protesters at the G20 summit. After years of litigation some people got a small amount of money, and no one was held responsible. Also, Nobody was arrested. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/06/27/adam-nobody-and-the-video-clip-that-changed-everything.html https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/06/27/adam-nobody-and-...

gord288 6y ago
And the chief of police responsible for these abuses is now the federal Minister for Public Safety. Good times.

owenwil 6y ago

I also live in Ontario (Toronto) and was struck by how practically 0 of police I've seen here over the last few months have been wearing masks – even when they came doorknocking in my neighborhood about a theft that happened on the street. They had the ability to look up things like this, but I bet they weren't even taking the precautions when they had that data.

wjnc 6y ago

I agree and have a general distrust of public servants and the environment they work in. There are No repercussions (in my locale, NLD) for breaking the law as a public servant. Even when the statutes are quite broad (like knowingly infringing on a law or the constitution by a very senior public servant or knowingly holding money for public benefit that shouldn't be held / restituted) there are literally zero prosecutions of these events. And I've gone quite deep even contacting the police agency especially created for such things (they don't even track complaints against these statutes) and searching the public database with judgements. The only thing we do is persecute clear graft. So the worst thing that could happen left is one government office getting fined by another, which is somewhat disappointing. It's taxes afteral going around. All I have for my deep-dive is a professor agreeing with me (hey N=2 beats N=1).

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

michael1999 6y ago

Const. Babak Andalib-Goortani was convicted of assault with a weapon but got off with 75 hours of community service, and Supt. Fenton received a reprimand for arresting 600 people without cause and keeping them in the rain, or in wire cages without facilities, and lost 30 vacation days. So yup.

skrtskrt 6y ago

Must be nice to live in a country where you see an example of this and even have a glimmer of hope something would be done about it. Or even a glimmer of hope that “cops should have known better”. Or even a single time there were even minor consequences for illegally detaining protestors. This would just be approximately example number 10 million of this happening in the US.

VoodooJuJu 6y ago

>Nothing will come of it To me, this is the most disappointing thing, that people will still continue to use devices that spy on them, even when they know that the device is spying on them. Many will say "we need better laws! punish those police!". Why even give them the opportunity to use your data maliciously in the first place? Why place all that trust into a complex system, a system with so many points of failure? It's inherently untrustworthy. "Oh, we won't use your data for malicious purposes, promise ;)". All it takes is one bad actor to inherit that system to cause problems. Again, don't even give them the opportunity; don't forfeit your freedom to begin with. Delete your facebook. Delete your twitter. Get rid of your spyphone. Breathe the free air again.

rapind 6y ago

I know most cops are good guys, yada, yada, but there’s just something wrong with the culture and leadership that’s utterly boneheaded. They were also secretly using clearview in Ontario.

sieabahlpark 6y ago

> 1. This shouldn't have happened, cops should have known better. If only something could have been done so that they didn't have the data at all in the first place... Hard to break the law if there is no data to use.

snarf21 6y ago

This is just another piece of proof that power corrupts. Morons like AG Barr want back doors they promise not to use without a warrant. Anything that can be used, will be used. This is a fact and will not change.