The dollar costs of lawful access

"Surveillance law could close small ISPs: Lawyer." The ISP operators of the nation are concerned about the impact of the coming Harper government lawful access legislation. Most are assuming it will be similar to previous iterations and we shall see. Here are some of the latest comments from those in the industry. Small and large operators are worried about the costs:

Assuming it will be the same act introduced in the last Parliament, “this isn’t going to be sustainable,” Chris Tacit, who acts for the Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC), said Wednesday during a regulatory panel discussion at a conference in Toronto for independent ISPs.

“If a smaller ISP has to make major network changes it could be game over.”

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Jonathan Daniels, vice-president of regulatory law at BCE Inc., which owns Bell Canada [TSX, NYSE: BCE], said the carrier wants to see the final act and the accompanying regulations, which might outline government compensation for complying with the act. Regulations weren’t published when the proposed act was introduced in the last parliament.

“We have big concerns about the capital requirements” for equipment, Daniels, said as well for possible high annual operating costs of maintaining a real-time data surveillance system across the country.

Lawful access is not just bad for privacy right violations reasons, it's bad for business too.