Although streaming services, such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, did not burden the government’s network, federal officials decided to prevent them because they were kept “People Management” according to internal documents received by CBC News.
Last December, the Agency for IT services, distributed Services Canada (SSC), prevented access to paid streaming sites, including Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV+, Prime Video, Disney+ and Crave 45 to the State Unit and Office.
At that time, the SSC spokesman said that “streaming services are not considered tools and does not provide business value to the Canadian government.”
Documents published by the request for information provide more information on making the decision.
SSC President Scott Jones wrote to the Ministry of Finance’s government officials in October 2024, saying that he wanted to “raise a few questions”, including the use of personal phones and streaming services among bureaucrats.
He wrote about a recent meeting of the deputy ministers, where they discussed the use of streaming services in federal buildings – and expressed support to prevent them.
“While streaming can ultimately affect the (Canadian government) lane width, it is also more important, the question of human leadership,” he wrote.
“In the current situation and in the public understanding of the public service as it is … these questions and the commitment to the SSC (Deputy Ministers) are worth taking action.”
Shortly thereafter, the SSC moved to prevent streaming services.
This email and others were received by Matt Malone, an assistant professor at the Ottawa University, by sending a request for information and distributed with CBC News.
Thousands of hours of streaming
A request that applied for documents Detailed grounds for decision -making concerning the ban on streaming services in state networksIncludes a report on streaming sites traffic in September 2024, after breakdown in the ward.
The report illuminates the more complete light on how much streaming was made in government networks compared to the official statement of the Agency when the sites were banned.
The Services Canada, shared in the November 2024 statement, said “network traffic monitoring indicates limited traffic to these sites from state systems”.
The Streaming report is presented as a bar map that displays the total volume of streaming per terabyte (TB).
The amount of information used depends on the quality of the streamed video. For example Netflix offers four data settings From the beginning of the beginning to a very high definition.
If users were streamed in a standard determination, one terabyte would be at least 1000 hours. If they were streamed in high definition, one terabyte is at least 340 hours of video.
The highest streaming departments included the National Ministry of Defense with more than three teaspoons, public services and the acquisition of Canada (PSPC) with nearly three terabytes and Priviva Council, which have about 1.5 terabytes per month.
The report includes the “top ten” department, which has the highest traffic to streaming sites in September 2024, including global Canada, Fisheries and Ocean Institute (Eastern), Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, Agriculture and Agricultural Food Canada, Ministry of Finance Secretary, Canadian Income Agency and North Affairs.
All of these departments reported about 0.75 TB a month per month.
Given the number of officials employed by the government, this part is quite minimal. For example, PSPC alone has about 19,000 employees.
Cyber Security Specialist Eric Parent says that only the numbers shown in the amount of data do not paint the whole picture.
“The metric that is missing is how many users, how many users are actively (streaming) and how long,” he said.
The report also shows nearly 10 TB streaming, which is made by a guest of the federal government Wi-Fi.
In the letter to the colleagues, the SSC leader stated that the government’s streaming numbers could have been partially relatively low because they used a program that strangles the speed of streaming to prioritize various Internet traffic on state networks.
