CHATHAM, Ont. — In its latest transparency report, published this month, ISP TekSavvy reveals it received 42 requests for subscriber information from government agencies last fall and provided the requested information in 30 of those cases, representing a response rate of 71.4%.
TekSavvy’s July report covers the period between October 1 to December 31, 2019, and breaks down the data by the type of authority behind the requests and by jurisdiction. Generally, the type of information requested was basic identifying information (subscriber name, service address, billing address, telephone number or email address), location tracking data and stored data.
Of the 42 requests for information during the period, 29 were court ordered and TekSavvy provided information in response to 22 of those requests. In the case of court orders, TekSavvy is legally required to comply with the information requests, but in seven of the cases during this period there was no relevant information to provide. As a matter of policy, TekSavvy retains information correlating a subscriber with an IP address for only a period of 30 days, for example, so it may no longer have had information to respond to some of the court orders.
TekSavvy received nine requests for information in relation to emergency situations and provided the requested information in response to eight of those requests. Before disclosing information, TekSavvy’s policy is to require the agency making the emergency request to answer a series of questions intended to establish the urgency and importance of the requested information.
TekSavvy also received four informal requests for information, which lacked legal authority because in most cases they were jurisdiction requests from law enforcement agencies asking TekSavvy to voluntarily provide the requested information. TekSavvy did not provide any information in response to these informal requests because it is not required to in the absence of a court order. The company’s policy is to only make voluntary disclosures in emergency circumstances.
In terms of which jurisdiction or level of government the requests came from, 14 information requests were made by provincial or municipal government agencies and 28 were requests from federal agencies. TekSavvy provided information in response to 11 of the provincial/municipal requests and 19 of the federal requests. TekSavvy noted in its report it did not receive any requests for information from a non-Canadian government agency during this time period.
For more information about TekSavvy’s transparency reports, please click here.
