Rogers Communications and internet service start-up TekSavvy have released the first-ever transparency reports from Canadian telecom companies, and what they have to say won’t lessen the concerns of privacy activists.
Rogers reported that it got 174,917 government requests for information about subscribers last year, or about 480 requests per day. That’s nearly one request for subscriber data per 54 Rogers customers every year.
Some 74,000 requests came by way of court order, indicating that more than 100,000 data requests were warrantless.
Of the total, 711 had to do with “child sexual exploitation emergency assistance requests,” as Rogers classified it — though child pornography and exploitation are usually cited as among the top reasons for expanding government surveillance powers.
Rogers did not say how often it complied with the requests, but noted that “if we consider an order to be too broad, we push back and, if necessary, go to court to oppose the request.”
Perhaps responding to allegations that some telecoms are giving police open access to their customer databases, Rogers said it does not do so.
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