OPEN PRIVACY CALLS ON CRTC TO ADOPT MANILA PRINCIPLES

Vancouver, BC — Open Privacy Research Society, a new Canadian not-for-profit group based in Vancouver, has filed an intervention in the CRTC’s hearing on ISP-blocking application by urging the CRTC to endorse the Manila Principles on Intermediary Liability.

The Manila Principles are an international charter. They set out principles to help ensure efforts to involve intermediaries, like ISPs, in the content they carry – like requiring them to create kill switches to block some content – respect users’ rights, including freedom of expression and the right to privacy.

Since they were first published in 2015, more than 100 organizations around the world have signed onto the Principles, including the U.S.’s Electronic Frontier Foundation, Europe’s EDRi, South Africa’s Association for Progressive Communciation, and India’s Centre for Internet and Society. However, the CRTC would become the first national communications regulatory authority to do so.

“The ISP-blocking proposal came up because the CRTC is charged with vetting all requests to block content,” commented Open Privacy executive director Sarah Jamie Lewis. “By endorsing the Manila Principles, the CRTC would send a powerful and, we think, uncontroversial signal that it will respect due process, transparency, proportionality, and clear rules when faced with this kind of request.”

LINKS:

Open Privacy Research Society https://openprivacy.ca/

Open Privacy Research Society submission https://services.crtc.gc.ca/pub/ListeInterventionList/Documents.aspx?ID=272822&en=2018-0046-7&dt=i&lang=e

Manila Principles FAQ https://www.manilaprinciples.org/faq

CONTACTS:

Sarah Jamie Lewis
Executive Director, Open Privacy Research Society
sarah@openprivacy.ca