Media Releases

Researchers map the Internet’s “boomerang routes” where data transfers between Canadians move through the US, increasing exposure to state surveillance

December 16, 2015

Toron­to, ON  – Researchers at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to announced today that IXmaps, a visu­al, inter­ac­tive data­base of Inter­net traf­fic routes, is now live. The tool, fund­ed by the .CA Com­mu­ni­ty Invest­ment Pro­gram, helps Cana­di­ans under­stand how their Inter­net traf­fic moves, and how cer­tain traf­fic routes (known as ‘boomerang routes’) move data through the Unit­ed States and into the juris­dic­tion of the U.S. Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Agency before return­ing to Cana­da.

Key facts

  • Canada’s Inter­net infra­struc­ture is inti­mate­ly linked to U.S. net­works. Many of the major Inter­net providers in Cana­da have net­works that favour north — south con­nec­tions, push­ing Cana­di­an data flows toward key Amer­i­can rout­ing hubs in New York, Chica­go, Seat­tle or Cal­i­for­nia.
  • The most pop­u­lar sites Cana­di­ans vis­it online, such as Google, Face­book, Youtube or Ama­zon, are based in the Unit­ed States. When using these ser­vices, Cana­di­ans like­ly rec­og­nize the fact that their data leaves exclu­sive Cana­di­an juris­dic­tion and is exposed to Amer­i­can mass sur­veil­lance under such laws as the Patri­ot Act.
  • Cana­di­ans may be sur­prised to learn how­ev­er that when access­ing Cana­di­an sites, even those in the same city, their data often still flows through the Unit­ed States. IXmaps research has found thou­sands of Inter­net traf­fic routes in which both ends of a data trans­fer are locat­ed in Cana­da, but the infor­ma­tion trav­els via the U.S. These are known as boomerang routes.
  • Expos­ing pri­vate or sen­si­tive data, such as health infor­ma­tion, stu­dent records, polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tion, reli­gious beliefs, finan­cial infor­ma­tion, con­tro­ver­sial view­points or inti­mate com­mu­ni­ca­tions, to for­eign sur­veil­lance is high­ly prob­lem­at­ic. Even when shar­ing rel­a­tive­ly innocu­ous infor­ma­tion on social media, Cana­di­ans have a right to expect their pri­va­cy rights will be respect­ed.
  • There are sev­er­al ways that com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions can work to lim­it the risk of their cus­tomer or client data need­less­ly mov­ing through the Unit­ed States. Thanks to invest­ment from the Cana­di­an Inter­net Reg­is­tra­tion Author­i­ty, there is now a nation­al net­work of Inter­net exchange points across Cana­da that allow Cana­di­an IXPs to peer and exchange Inter­net data with­in Cana­da. Con­sumers should be aware of and com­fort­able with their ISP’s lev­el of com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing data pri­va­cy.

Exec­u­tive quotes

“There is noth­ing inher­ent­ly wrong with data mov­ing unen­cum­bered across an inter­con­nect­ed glob­al Inter­net infra­struc­ture. It is, how­ev­er, crit­i­cal that Cana­di­ans under­stand the impli­ca­tions of their data being stored on U.S servers and mov­ing through U.S. juris­dic­tion. ISPs need to be trans­par­ent, pri­va­cy pro­tec­tive and account­able cus­to­di­ans of user infor­ma­tion in this regard. Inter­net users should be ful­ly informed con­sumers and cit­i­zens when mak­ing choic­es about their sen­si­tive per­son­al data.”

  • Andrew Clement, Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to

“Inter­net advo­cates across Cana­da have long recog­nised that tru­ly Cana­di­an Inter­net infra­struc­ture is the only way to keep Cana­di­ans’ data under the purview of Cana­di­an laws. At the Cana­di­an Inter­net Reg­is­tra­tion Author­i­ty we have invest­ed heav­i­ly in the east to west back­bone of Inter­net exchanges points required to main­tain Cana­di­an Inter­net traf­fic routes.”

  • Jacques Latour, chief tech­nol­o­gy offi­cer at the Cana­di­an Inter­net Reg­is­tra­tion Author­i­ty

“Few Cana­di­ans real­ize just how much of our every­day Inter­net traf­fic trav­els through the U.S. You could be in a restau­rant in down­town Mon­tréal email­ing your friend across the street, and that data could eas­i­ly be trav­el­ing through the U.S., where it’s sub­ject to inva­sive NSA sur­veil­lance. That’s why it’s so impor­tant that Cana­di­ans pitch in, and help us learn more about the paths our data actu­al­ly takes online.”

  • Lau­ra Tribe, Dig­i­tal Rights Spe­cial­ist, Open­Media

Cana­di­ans can learn from and con­tribute to IXmaps

  • IXmaps has a crowd­sourced data­base of over 40,000 inter­net routes, which you can map selec­tive­ly via the Explore page of the IXmaps.ca web­site. It is work­ing to expand its data­base to bet­ter rep­re­sent all regions of Cana­da and all ISPs. Cana­di­ans can con­tribute to this research to help bet­ter under­stand how dif­fer­ent regions, ISPs, and web­sites, influ­ence the routes that our data takes online and the hence the pri­va­cy risks they are exposed to.
  • Con­tribut­ing data involves installing the IXmaps Client tracer­oute gen­er­at­ing soft­ware built by the IXmaps devel­op­ment team. The soft­ware ini­ti­ates anonymized tracer­oute requests from your loca­tion and shares the results via the Explore page of the IXmaps.ca web­site.

Addi­tion­al resources

About .CA and the Com­mu­ni­ty Invest­ment Pro­gram

Through the Com­mu­ni­ty Invest­ment Pro­gram, .CA funds projects that demon­strate the capac­i­ty to improve the Inter­net for all Cana­di­ans. The .CA team man­ages Canada’s coun­try code top-lev­el domain on behalf of all Cana­di­ans. A Mem­ber-dri­ven orga­ni­za­tion, .CA rep­re­sents the inter­ests of Canada’s Inter­net com­mu­ni­ty inter­na­tion­al­ly.

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For more infor­ma­tion or inter­view requests:     

Ryan Sax­by Hill, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er for .CA
613–237-5335 ext. 285
ryan.hill@cira.ca

Lau­ra Tribe, Dig­i­tal Rights Spe­cial­ist for Open­Media
+1 (888) 441‑2640, ext. 2
laura@openmedia.org

Andrew Clement, Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus, iSchool, Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
778–354-3000
andrew.clement@utoronto.ca