Cyber-Threats to Canadian Democracy (McGill-Queen's/Brian Mulroney Institute of Government Studies in Leadership, Public Policy, and Governance, 6)

by Holly Ann Garnett (Editor), Michael Pal (Editor)

From the Cambridge Analytica scandal to overloaded internet voting servers to faulty voting machines, the growing relationship between democracy and technology has brought to light the challenges associated with integrating new digital tools into the electoral system. Canadian politics has also felt the impact of this migration online. This timely book presents the first comprehensive study of the various cyber-threats to election integrity across Canadian jurisdictions. Scrutinizing the events of the 2019 federal election, Cyber-Threats to Canadian Democracy examines how new technologies have affected the practice of electoral politics and what we can do to strengthen future Canadian elections. Through the disciplines of political science, law, computer science, engineering, communications, and others, chapters shed light on some of the most contentious issues around technology and electoral integrity. The contributors address current domestic and foreign threats to Canadian elections, evaluate the behaviour of actors ranging from political parties and interest groups to policymakers and election administrators, and assess emerging legal and regulatory responses while anticipating future challenges to the quality of elections in Canada and around the globe. Cyber-Threats to Canadian Democracy helps seed the study of digital technology’s security risks, providing insight into what reforms are needed and evaluating existing legal and policy frameworks in light of these threats.

360 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2022

Reviews

[Myles · Rating 3 out of 5]

According to these authors there are no credible cyber threats to Canadian democracy at present; or if there are, we’ll never know about them until it’s too late because we insist on running our counter measures under a cloak of absolute secrecy.

That’s not to say there won’t be any domestic or external threats in the future.

What we know about our public institutions, including our political parties, is that we are not prepared for head on denial of service attacks, or ransomeware attacks, or the dumping of huge caches of secret documents into the public eye. And our network hygiene on a societal level completely sucks.

And our laws are insufficient to circumscribe deep fakes and other artificial counterfeit AV presentations.

We are also as a society completely unready for electronic voting on a broad scale.