[Infowarrior] - Patriot Act haunts Google service

[Richard Forno]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080324.wrgoogle24/BNSto
ry/Technology/home

Patriot Act haunts Google service

SIMON AVERY

>From Monday's Globe and Mail

March 24, 2008 at 4:05 AM EDT

Google Inc. is a year into its ground-shifting strategy to change the way
people communicate and work.

But the initiative to reinvent the way that people use software is running
headlong into another new phenomenon of the information technology age: the
unprecedented powers of security officials in the United States to conduct
surveillance on communications.

Eighteen months ago, Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., had an
outdated computer system that was crashing daily and in desperate need of an
overhaul. A new installation would have cost more than $1-million and taken
months to implement. Google's service, however, took just 30 days to set up,
didn't cost the university a penny and gave nearly 8,000 students and
faculty leading-edge software, said Michael Pawlowski, Lakehead's
vice-president of administration and finance.

U.S.-based Google spotlighted the university as one of the first to adopt
its software model of the future, and today Mr. Pawlowski boasts the move
was the right thing for Lakehead, saving it hundreds of thousands of dollars
in annual operating costs. But he notes one trade-off: The faculty was told
not to transmit any private data over the system, including student marks.

The U.S. Patriot Act, passed in the weeks after the September, 2001,
terrorist attacks in the United States, gives authorities the means to
secretly view personal data held by U.S. organizations. It is at odds with
Canada's privacy laws, which require organizations to protect private
information and inform individuals when their data has been shared.

At Lakehead, the deal with Google sparked a backlash. "The [university] did
this on the cheap. By getting this free from Google, they gave away our
rights," said Tom Puk, past president of Lakehead's faculty association,
which filed a grievance against Lakehead administration that's still in
arbitration.

Professors say the Google deal broke terms of their collective agreement
that guarantees members the right to private communications. Mr. Puk says
teachers want an in-house system that doesn't let third parties see their
e-mails.

Some other organizations are banning Google's innovative tools outright to
avoid the prospect of U.S. spooks combing through their data. Security
experts say many firms are only just starting to realize the risks they
assume by embracing Web-based collaborative tools hosted by a U.S. company,
a problem even more acute in Canada where federal privacy rules are at odds
with U.S. security measures.

"You have to decide which law you are going to break," said Darren Meister,
associate professor of information systems at the Richard Ivey School of
Business, who specializes in how technology enhances organizational
effectiveness. "If I were a business manager, I would want to be very
careful about what kind of data I made accessible to U.S. law enforcement."

Using their new powers under the Patriot Act, U.S. intelligence officials
can scan documents, pick out certain words and create profiles of the
authors - a frightening challenge to academic freedom, Mr. Puk said.

For instance, a Lakehead researcher with a Middle Eastern name, researching
anthrax or nuclear energy, might find himself denied entry to the United
States without ever knowing why. "You would have no idea what they are up to
with your information until, perhaps, it is too late," Mr. Puk said. "We
don't want to be subject to laws of the Patriot Act."

Google's free Web tools are advertising-based and they automatically extract
information from personal content to build a profile for advertisers.
Lakehead professors also object to this feature, although Mr. Puk says
Google has refrained from attaching ads until the grievance is settled.

The privacy issue goes far beyond academia. In Toronto, at SickKids
Foundation, which has the largest endowment of any Canadian hospital,
employees have been keen to use Google tools. But the foundation's IT
department blocked access for two reasons.

"Wherever possible, we keep our donor and patient records in Canada, as
trying to enforce privacy laws in other jurisdictions is complex and
expensive," said Chris Woodill, director of IT and new media at SickKids
Foundation. Second, free hosted software offers limited support and no
formal legal contract, limiting an organization's ability to demand
additional privacy or security measures, he said.

Google says it has a strong track record in regard to protecting customers'
data. The firm cites a court case it fought in 2006 against attempts by the
U.S. Justice Department to subpoena customer search records. "We will
continue to be strong advocates on behalf of protecting our users' data,"
said Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel.

But the Mountain View, Calif.-based company will not discuss how often
government agencies demand access to its customers' information or whether
content on its new Web-based collaborative tools has been the subject of any
reviews under the Patriot Act.

Montreal security strategist Jeffrey Posluns says Google's software suite
may suit some small businesses because cost savings are significant. But he
warns that the deciding factor should be the sensitivity of the
organization's information.