OTTAWA – Canada’s privacy commissioner has determined that personal information belonging to Bell Sympatico Internet service customers “is affected” by the way the company links deep packet inspection, IP addresses and identification numbers.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner received a complaint that Bell Canada uses deep packet inspection (DPI) technology during Internet transmissions to collect and use personal information from its customers without their consent.
DPI is a tool used by Internet service providers to view information transmitted on the Internet (from e-mails, downloads, and uploads, for example) in order to manage the ISPs’ network traffic. It has also been used as part of an intrusion prevention system, an intrusion detection system or with traditional firewall technology.
In Assistant Commissioner Elizabeth Denham’s report of findings, she recommended that Bell make its policies more open by highlighting in its service agreements all information pertaining to the retaining or using of information from posted subscriber comments; improving its privacy FAQ on its website, relative to how Bell’s traffic management practices impact the privacy of customers; and revise its answer to the question ‘What is Deep Packet Inspection and what does it have to do with Internet traffic management?’ on its website so as to indicate that personal information is collected.
Click here to read the complete report.
