Canada’s intelligence watchdog says a program that has diplomats collecting sensitive information abroad runs the risk of blowback from foreign states.
The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency warns that the Global Security Reporting Program isn’t adequately monitored, and has at times caused Canada’s allies to confuse diplomats with spies.
Global Affairs Canada runs the program by posting roughly 30 diplomats abroad to interview people such as activists, journalists, and armed opposition groups. The information is often shared with Canada’s spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
Yet there is a lack of clarity when it comes to the role the program plays vis-à-vis the work of CSIS officers abroad, the report says.
There is also inadequate training for members of the program on how they can avoid breaking international rules that forbid diplomats from spying, the watchdog found.
Its report warns these gaps could lead to strained relations with foreign states, and risk the safety of people who speak with Canadian officials.
The report is dated December 2020, but the watchdog only published the report on its website on Dec. 20, and the agency did not immediately respond when asked to explain the delay.
“The activities of certain GSRP officers abroad raised concern that some activities may not be in accordance with (diplomatic) duties and functions,” reads the report.
“The program does not have appropriate safeguards in place regarding the safety of contacts overseas.”
The report found that those undertaking this job don’t understand the Vienna Convention that governs diplomatic relations, which forbids spying.
Global Affairs officials overseeing the program “indicated that a policy suite was unnecessary given that officers ‘are doing what diplomats have always done,’” the report reads, quoting from an interview with a program manager.
The agency found that just four people are in charge of managing a team of roughly 30 agents and the roughly 2,000 reports the team issues in a year.
“This deprives (Global Affairs Canada) of the capacity to perform adequate quality control of officer activities,” the report reads.
The agency recommends “more robust governance and accountability structures, additional oversight and attention to information-management best practices.”
The review agency also found the program lacked co-ordination, with policies communicated by email and some of the information diplomats collected, staying within embassies instead of being logged in Ottawa.
Global Affairs Canada’s former bureaucratic head, Marta Morgan, responded to the agency in early 2022, arguing that the report “gives inadequate consideration to the fact that GSRP officers operate overtly under a transparent and well-established mandate” that complies with Canadian and foreign conventions.
Ms. Morgan pushed back on the report’s contention that the program has “the potential to cause unnecessary reputational and political harm to the government of Canada,” saying that hasn’t come to pass.
“The department has never experienced any instance of such harm in the context of the GSRP since its inception in 2002,” the deputy minister wrote.
Her letter noted an advisory committee had been formed to look at the program’s governance, and that the department would aim to do a better job managing data and update its legal training.
Ms. Morgan added that the department would ask its legal team “to clarify and document the program’s legal authority to operate as part of the overseas diplomatic reporting apparatus.”
According to the review agency’s website, a response to the report from the foreign-affairs minister has yet to be posted.
Global Affairs Canada did not immediately respond when asked whether that response would be made public on Dec. 20.
