The commission that probed foreign interference in Canadian elections says the government should create an agency to monitor the internet for “misinformation and disinformation.”
Mary-Josee Hogue, the commissioner of the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions, released her final report Tuesday, concluding that no parliamentarians “acted in bad faith.”
Among the 51 recommendations was for the government to establish a federal watchdog for foreign disinformation campaigns on social media.
“The government should consider creating a government entity to monitor the domestic open-source online information environment for misinformation and disinformation that could impact Canadian democratic processes,” Hogue said in the report.
The proposed entity would work with national security and intelligence agencies, international partners and “appropriate civil society and private organizations.”
“The entity should be structured to comply with applicable law and should have the authority to give and receive intelligence and information. Giving the entity authority to interact with social media platforms should also be considered.”
However, the report did not define Hogue’s meaning by giving the entity authority to “interact with” social media platforms.
“Open source, online disinformation campaigns by foreign states targeting Canada’s democratic institutions interfere with our sovereignty,” Hogue said in the report. “It is in the public interest to identify and have the government respond to these activities.”
She said having a clear legislative framework to collect and assess open-source domestic online information that respects privacy rights is “critical.”
Hogue said the entity should also sit on the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force, or SITE-TF, and should have relevant information on foreign interference gained by Rapid Response Mechanism available to it.
“I stress that I am not recommending that the government monitor all social media activity or private or semi-private communications of Canadians,” she said. “Canadians can have the right to freely associate and express themselves online, and the right to privacy extends to online spaces.”
Also among the commissioner’s 60-page report was for the Canada Elections Act to be amended to ban “false information from being spread to undermine the legitimacy of an election or its results.”
She said the prohibition should target individuals or entities where it is shown that the person knew the statement to be false and that the statement was made “with the goal of undermining trust in the election and its results.”
The report also advocates for expanding the sections banning impersonation of someone involved in an election to include deepfakes and AI-generated materials.
She noted those AI representations made for parody or satire should still be shielded from her proposed amendments.
Hogue also advocated for AI materials made for “electoral communications” during an election or pre-election to be identified with a watermark.
Many of the other recommendations revolved around the expediency of intelligence and security agencies to inform decision-makers and affected individuals who are targeted by suspected foreign interference schemes.
She also suggested that CSIS and the RCMP release a policy on their duty to inform individuals who they suspect are being threatened by foreign actors. The intelligence and security agency would have a “duty to inform” both the relevant security agency responsible for protecting the subject of the threats and the individual themselves.
In the name of transparency, Hogue recommended that classified briefings should also have a “written to release” version of classified information that is disseminated at lower levels of classification or unclassified sources.
The prime minister of “every new government” should publicly release expectations of his or her National Security and Intelligence advisor in the form of mandate letters so the public understands what the advisor’s role will be, Hogue wrote, also calling for an “after-action report” following each election.
Also, to help combat the influence of foreign agents in elections, Hogue recommended that intelligence agencies “continue to diversify their personnel based on cultural, ethnic and linguistic backgrounds”
She said this will help build trust with a community “whose members feel they are over-policed, homogenized, victimized or misunderstood.”