Canada Revenue Agency no longer log BBM and SMS messages as they are “non-secure”

Canada Revenue Agency has destroyed all text message records of its employees and has disabled logging of these messages in the future.

Emails reveal that Shared Services Canada, the federal organization responsible for information technology services, destroyed the records in the middle of a business day in August.

“Your request has been actioned,” wrote an official from Shared Services Canada in an email on Aug 27.

“BBM and SMS are no longer logged and previous logs have been deleted.”

A deputy assistant commissioner at the CRA replied the next day

“Excellent,”

“Thanks so much for your prompt action!”

The Canada Revenue Agency has confirmed that it instructed the organization to destroy those records and also no longer log the instant messages, including PINs, BBMs and regular texts, going forward.

Philippe Brideau, a CRA spokesman.said,

“Since SMS and BBM messaging are non-secure, transitory methods of communication are used only for routine and nonbusiness related purposes; there is no requirement to maintain the transitory information,”

The email records obtained by the Star show that CRA employee BlackBerry devices were starting to get software updates to disable logging after 10 a.m. on Aug. 27.

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