EFF Launches Canarywatch Tracking Site Canarywatch.org

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a human rights organization in collaboration with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society (Harvard University’s cyberspace research center), the University of New York, and Calyx.net launched CanaryWatch.org , which aims to track “canary evidence” on various sites. - a method of transmitting information through silence or denial.

Many public organizations, especially those whose work is related to the processing of users' personal data, publish special documents on how such processing is carried out. For example, a reportGoogle, where you can find statistics on requests from government agencies for the transfer of user information to them: it follows that at the beginning of 2014, the search giant revealed data on about 31 thousand accounts.

Recently, Microsoft said that they had handed over to the French government electronic correspondence of suspects in the execution of the editorial office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. However, according to the U.S. Patriotic Act, an organization may receive a court order with instructions prohibiting it from divulging the fact of such a receipt. Typically, such orders are designed to carry out "measures to protect national security," which means covert surveillance of users.

Paragraph 215 of the US Patriotic Act, adopted after the September 11 terrorist attack, is the basis for monitoring electronic correspondence and phone calls - the existence of such programs became known thanks to the testimony of Edward Snowden. He stated that surveillance of people is carried out with the assistance of Internet companies, and the NSA pays them for access to correspondence and user files. The FBI has a specially designed program “Carnivore” for monitoring users online - its use “in emergency cases” can be started by the bureau employees without a judge’s warrant issued with the approval of the prosecutor’s office.

Probably, if it were not for the evidence of Snowden, then in Internet companies would not mind keeping any prescriptions from the NSA secret and comply with them. However, scandals with the privacy of users have forced many heads of companies to make excuses that no espionage is actually being conducted. In November 2013, Apple in its Transparency Report mentioned that the company does not carry out any of the actions permitted in paragraph 215 of the Patriotic Act. If such a document would have been received, but in the next report the mention of this would have disappeared. This principle is called “testimony of the canary”

It is CanaryWatch.org designed to track such cases: employees will track any changes to the “canary evidence” on the sites and regularly update the Canary List. So far, it is very small and of the large companies it can be noted only Reddit and Pinterest. For each site, a link to a document is indicated, which reports on the absence of requirements for surveillance and the date of verification of this document. Thus, it will be possible to quickly judge the actions of the company.