This article reports the results of a survey examining Canadians’ attitudes about political parties’ collection of personal information. Datified campaigning brings concerns about surveillance, divisiveness, digital redlining and elector autonomy. This article asks whether awareness of parties’ data collection practices affects willingness to engage with campaigns. We find (1) that respondents are not fully aware of political parties’ data collection practices, (2) that awareness of parties’ collection of personal information may reduce electors’ willingness to interact with political parties online, (3) that those who are more aware of these practices report higher levels of concern about them and that those who do not think that parties’ collection of personal information is important to the democratic process also report higher levels of concern, and (4) that new legal measures to regulate how political parties collect and use personal information are supported by respondents.

This article examines the role of internet service providers (ISPs) as guardians of personal information and protectors of privacy, with a particular focus on how telecom companies in Canada have historically negotiated these responsibilities. Communications intermediaries have long been expected to act as privacy custodians by their users, while simultaneously being subject to pressures to collect, utilize, and disclose personal information. As service providers gain custody over increasing volumes of highly-sensitive information, their importance as privacy custodians has been brought into starker relief and explicitly recognized as a core responsibility.

Some ISPs have adopted a more positive orientation to this responsibility, actively taking steps to advance it, rather that treating privacy protection as a set of limitations on conduct. However, commitments to privacy stewardship are often neutralized through contradictory legal obligations (such as mandated surveillance access) and are recurrently threatened by commercial pressures to monetize personal information.