Check out what we’ve been up to this so far in 2021 and what we have in store for the rest of the year!

We do not receive any funding from any federal, provincial or municipal governments or political parties so your support is essential to our work.

If you think our work is important, please support the ICLMG with a one-time or monthly donation or become a supporter on Patreon for as little as $1/month and get rewards!

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Don’t expand anti-terror laws to fight racism

Following the addition of new groups to the Terror Entities List in February 2021 – and in continuity with our mandate and official positions since our creation in 2002 – we have denounced the use and expansion of racist and rights-violating anti-terror laws to fight hate and white supremacism, including the list.

In January, we wrote an op-ed and sent a letter to the Prime Minister and the Public Safety Minister to denounce their plans to use the problematic Terror Entities List.

In February we published a press release following the news that new groups were added to the list and, with Azeezah Kanji, we sent an open letter to the federal government signed by 175 individuals and organizations opposing the expansion of anti-terror laws to fight racism. We continue to publicize our letters and to fight for the abrogation of the list.

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Our parliamentary work

We convened calls with our members, partner organizations and other experts on several topics coming up in the political sphere, including facial recognition surveillance by security agencies, the “online harms” legislation, Bill C-11 (amending PIPEDA), and the reform of the Privacy Act. We submitted a brief regarding the latter to the government consultation outlining our concerns around national security-related elements.

We met with MPs from various federal parties, Public Safety critics and Directors of Policy and Research, Representatives from the Canada Revenue Agency and Finance Canada, Parliamentary and Policy staff from the Office of the Public Safety Minister and Public Safety Canada, and Policy staff from the Office of the Justice Minister and Justice Canada. We also met with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency.

We need your help to continue fighting for
justice and human rights!

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Report exposing CRA’s Prejudiced Audits against Muslim Charities

In June, we published a report entitled The CRA’s Prejudiced Audits: Counter-Terrorism and the Targeting of Muslim Charities in Canada. The report was covered in more than 75 news articles and op-eds.

To accompany the report, we created a letter-writing campaign to Stop CRA’s Prejudiced Audits. More than 2400 emails have been sent so far. We also organized a public event to present the findings and recommendations and recorded it for further distribution. We sent an open letter signed by 130 groups to Prime Minister Trudeau supporting our report. Finally, we will continue to meet with federal officials to present the report and our recommendations for change to stop those prejudiced audits.

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Justice for Dr Hassan Diab and his family!

Despite no new evidence, strong exculpatory evidence, and contradictory reasoning, France’s highest court recently confirmed the Court of Appeal’s decision ordering Hassan to stand trial. We have thus recently been fighting for the federal government to commit to refusing a second extradition, and to urge France to put an immediate end to this continuing miscarriage of justice.

We have published two press releases, hosted a press conference and participated in another, as well as created new domestic and international letter-writing campaigns calling for those actions. More than 7000 emails have been sent so far. We also publicized a parliamentary petition started by the Hassan Diab Support Committee. We also continue pushing for the reform of the extradition law so that what happened to Hassan never happens again.

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ICLMG in the media

CBC: Using terrorist list to label white supremacists risks repeating errors of 9/11 era, civil rights groups say + 10 more

The Canadian Press: Trudeau signals support for Hassan Diab as advocates demand intervention with France + Canada’s spy warrant shortcomings stretch back at least 9 years, audit shows

Free City Radio #33: Tim McSorley on opposing anti-terror legislation in Canada

Coverage of our CRA report: CRA audits disproportionately targeted Muslim charities for years says civil liberties group in the Hill Times + 40 more media

Coverage of the open letter signed by 130+ groups in support of our CRA report: Muslim charities concerned about targeted audits call for security watchdog probe in The Canadian Press + 35 more media. And more!

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Presentation to the Bias Sensitivity, Diversity and Identity in National Security symposium organized by Public Safety Canada.

We participated in an online event for the official launch of the Big Data Surveillance Project book we contributed a chapter to. Watch the video here. You can purchase the book here.

We co-presented the online event “Challenging Security Inadmissibility in Canada’s Immigration System” with the Canadian Council for Refugees, and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, and with panelists Sharry Aiken, Warda Shazadi Meighen, and Washim Ahmed.

We co-sponsored Noor Cultural Centre’s event: Connecting Abolitionist Struggles: Settler Colonialism, Mass Incarceration & the “War on Terror” with speakers Dr. Arun Kundnani, El Jones and Shady Hafez.

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We published op-eds, articles & statements

NEW “The Case for a Ban on Facial Recognition Surveillance in Canada” in Queens University Surveillance & Society Journal

Privacy Commissioner Report Slamming RCMP Use of Facial Recognition Technology Demonstrates the Need for an Immediate Ban, Says Civil Liberties Coalition

ICLMG denounces Islamophobic and hate-based attack in London and expresses deep condolences to the family and Muslim community

Intelligence Commissioner Report 2020: The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Canadian Datasets and Other Observations

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… and more!

We co-signed a letter to the Prime Minister denouncing the attacks and escalation of violence perpetrated by Israeli authorities on Palestinian civilians.

We shared many calls to action via our News Digest and social media including a recent action to stop the deportation of Moe Harkat – which included our updated letter-writing campaign – and calls for the release of Cihan Erdal from a Turkish jail.

We continue to publish our News Digest, which is distributed to thousands of people

+ Check out the News Digest archive if you’ve missed some of our issues.

+ If you know anyone interested in receiving it, send them an invite to sign up!

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What we have planned for the rest of the year

• We will organize activities around the 20th “anniversary” of the beginning of the so-called “War on Terror” and the rushed adoption of Canada’s Anti-terrorism Act of 2001, as well as the problematic laws passed and human rights abuses inflicted since in the name of national security.

• We will continue to protect our civil liberties against surveillance, including the threat of facial recognition technology, government’s relentless attempts to weaken encryption, and online mass surveillance by security agencies.

• We will continue to push for greater accountability and transparency for the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), including the establishment of a strong, effective and independent review mechanism.

• We will continue to fight to abolish security certificates and end deportation to torture. Central to this is our work to stop Mohamed Harkat’s deportation to torture.

• We will continue to monitor the implementation of the National Security Act, 2017 (formerly Bill C-59), especially around mass surveillance and immunity for CSIS employees.

• We will continue advocating for the repeal of the Canadian No Fly List, and for putting a stop to the use of the US No Fly List by air carriers in Canada for flights that do not land in or fly over the US.

• We will continue to call for justice for Dr. Hassan Diab and for the reform of the Extradition Act.

• We will continue to pressure lawmakers to protect our civil liberties from the negative impact of national security and the “war on terror”, as well as keeping you and our member organizations informed via the News Digest.
  
  

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More than 130 groups signed an open letter to Prime Minister Trudeau and members of his cabinet, raising concerns and calling for action in regards to the Canada Revenue Agency’s prejudiced audits of Muslim charities, under the auspices of countering terrorist financing.

The letter is in support of the revelations and recommendations included in ICLMG’s new report “The CRA’s Prejudiced Audits: Counter-terrorism and the targeting of Muslim charities in Canada.” You can read the full report, executive summary, and write to Prime Minister Trudeau to add your voice at https://iclmg.ca/prejudiced-audits.

Continue reading →

For immediate release

Privacy Commissioner Report Slamming RCMP Use of Facial Recognition Technology Demonstrates the Need for an Immediate Ban, Says Civil Liberties Coalition

June 15, 2021, OTTAWA – The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG) is re-iterating its call for the federal government to ban the RCMP from using facial recognition technology, given the grave findings by the Privacy Commissioner that the federal police agency’s use of facial recognition technology broke the law.

The findings come in the long-awaited report on the Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s (OPC) investigation into the RCMP’s use of the controversial Clearview AI facial recognition system, which the OPC found violated Canadian privacy laws in an earlier report. The investigation into the RCMP’s use of this technology was spurred by both the controversial nature of Clearview AI’s collecting three billion images of individuals’ faces without their consent, to be scanned and compared by law enforcement and select private clients, as well as the RCMP’s initial denial that they ever used Clearview AI. The police agency was forced to acknowledge the lie in the hours before Clearview AI’s client list – which included the RCMP – was made public in early 2020.

The OPC report concludes that the RCMP is responsible for ensuring that the technology it uses does not violate the laws governing the privacy rights of people in Canada. Disturbingly, the RCMP contests that decision, believing that it has no responsibility to verify that third party contractors it works with are not breaking the law.

“It is completely unacceptable and irresponsible that the RCMP be allowed to continue to use facial recognition technology, after misleading the public, misleading the Privacy Commissioner’s office, and insisting that it is not their responsibility to ensure the tools they are using are lawful,” said Tim McSorley, National Coordinator of the ICLMG. “Public Safety Minister Bill Blair must immediately act to end the RCMP’s use of this technology.”

In response to the recommendations in the OPC’s report, the RCMP has agreed to conduct privacy assessments of third party tools, and to establish a new “oversight function” which would review new technology being used by the RCMP for respect of individuals’ privacy rights.

While on the surface this is positive, the RCMP has not demonstrated a strong track record in publishing privacy impact assessments (including their use of facial recognition technology and other surveillance tools). Their promise of an internal oversight mechanism is also undermined by their previous obfuscation of their use of Clearview AI. While it is necessary that there be new transparency and accountability rules around the RCMP’s use of emerging technologies, facial recognition technology is too prone to misuse, inaccuracies, biases and other severe violations of rights that it must simply be banned.

Any future oversight of the RCMP’s use of emerging technology for rights-based and legal compliance must be independent. Mandatory Privacy Impact Assessments, with stronger powers of review and order making powers for the OPC, could present a solution, as could exploring an oversight role for the Intelligence Commissioner.

“The RCMP has proven it cannot be trusted to be transparent and open about its use of privacy-invasive, rights-undermining and even unlawful tools,” said McSorley. “This will only continue to worsen if the RCMP is allowed to ‘oversee’ itself. The Minister of Public Safety must act now to place a ban on facial recognition surveillance by federal agencies, and develop a clear proposal for independent oversight of new and emerging tools going forward.”

In July 2020, 30 organizations and 46 human rights and privacy experts joined the ICLMG in calling for a ban on facial recognition surveillance by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies: https://iclmg.ca/facial-recognition-letter.

The ICLMG is encouraging individuals to add their voices and send a message to the government at https://iclmg.ca/BanFR.