Canadian telecom service provider TekSavvy has released its second quarterly transparency report, revealing that it received 36 information requests from various government agencies between April 1st, 2017 and June 30th, 2017.
The telecom provided information for 30 of those requests.
Of the 36 requests, 19 came from provincial authorities, while 17 came from federal authorities. TekSavvy didn’t receive any requests from any non-Canadian government agencies during the time period.
Approximately four were ‘informal’ requests, 25 were court ordered, and six were ‘exigent or emergency’ requests.
“Informal requests are requests that lack legal authority,” reads an excerpt from TekSavvy’s report. “This means that the agency making the request is not doing so under any law – they are simply asking for us to voluntarily provide them with the requested information.”
Additionally, TekSavvy disclosed the names of all of its customers to the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA), as part of a mandatory GST/HST audit, on March 24th, 2017.
As TekSavvy explains, the purpose of its transparency report “is to provide insight into our disclosure practices by detailing how often we receive and respond to government agencies’ requests for the personal information of our end users.”
The reports themselves are recommended by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), as per the agency’s Transparency Reporting Guidelines.
ISED recommends that companies disclose requests if more than 100 requests are received.
“While that threshold may make sense for larger telecommunications companies, TekSavvy is still relatively small,” reads an excerpt from TekSavvy’s report. “We do not receive hundreds of requests from government agencies, therefore enumerating requests in a manner consistent with ISED’s Guidelines would not provide the level of transparency that we aim to achieve.”
Source: TekSavvy
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