China, Russia will ‘very likely’ use AI to target Canadian voters: Intelligence agency

Canada’s cyber intelligence agency is warning that countries including China, Russia and Iran will “very likely” lean on artificial intelligence to try and interfere in the upcoming federal election and mislead voters.

In a report assessing threats to Canada’s democratic process in the upcoming year, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) said those known hostile actors are looking to use AI to fuel disinformation campaigns or launch hacking operations.

While the 28-page document suggests the threats are real and evolving, CSE does stress that it believes it’s “very unlikely” that AI-enabled activities will “fundamentally undermine the integrity of Canada’s next general election.”

It said these actors “are most likely to use generative Al as a means of creating and spreading disinformation, designed to sow division among Canadians and push narratives conducive to the interests of foreign states,” wrote the agency in its report, released Thursday morning. 

“Canadian politicians and political parties are at heightened risk of being targeted by cyber threat actors, particularly through phishing attempts.”

Generative AI is the technology powering popular tools like ChatGPT that are trained on huge amounts of data to generate a response to a wide range of requests from a user.

The report focuses on the rapidly evolving and increasingly affordable technology. There are generative AI tools that can create text, images, computer code, music or video, and others can quickly sort and analyze data. 

Only some of those tools have applied strict guardrails for their use.

Parties hold troves of data

CSE says Canadian politicians and political parties are likely to be targeted by threat actors seeking to conduct hack-and-leak operations, where stolen information is put online to cause harm or embarrassment. 

The intelligence agency says foreign actors could easily use generative AI to engage with targets as part of an extended phishing operation to breach their networks. 

Some nation states, including China, have already amassed billions of data points on politicians, public figures like journalists and citizens around the world typically through open-source acquisition, covert purchase and theft, says the report. 

“Canadian political parties hold terabytes of politically relevant data about Canadian voters as do commercial data brokers,” the report notes.

That data can be harnessed to run targeted personal influence or espionage campaigns, says CSE, which is responsible for monitoring foreign signals intelligence and is the lead on Canada’s cyber operations. 

“We assess foreign actors are almost certainly attempting to acquire this data, which they can then weaponize against Canadian democratic processes,” reads the report.

Chances of an early election growing 

CSE does say it’s unlikely that hostile actors will carry out a destructive cyberattack against election infrastructure, such as attempting to paralyze telecommunications systems on election day, “outside of imminent or direct armed conflict.”

It said the People’s Republic of China is the most likely to deploy its vast AI capabilities to push narratives favourable to its interests and spread disinformation among Canadian voters, in particular “Chinese-diaspora communities.” 

CSE suggests Russia and Iran see the Canadian election as a lower priority target compared to the U.S. and U.K.

Domestic activists can also easily access off-the-shelf AI tools and “will almost certainly use these tools to spread disinformation ahead of a national election” 

It’s a virtual certainty that Canadians will find themselves at the ballot box this spring.

The Conservatives, who are still leading in the polls but have seen their dominance slip in recent weeks, have been adamant about their plans to bring down the government at the first opportunity after Parliament returns March 24.

The NDP has also said it would topple the Liberals, but is now suggesting the House of Commons reconvene for an emergency session to pass a support package for workers impacted by the trade war first. 

There’s also a chance an election is called before Parliament returns, depending on the outcome of Sunday’s Liberal leadership convention.

Perceived front-runner Mark Carney hasn’t said publicly whether he’d call a snap election.

His main rival, former finance minister and Liberal MP Chrystia Freeland, promised Wednesday to consult with premiers and business and union leaders as her first act if she becomes prime minister on whether to call a federal election.

Thursday’s CSE report is an update to an assessment it put out in 2022 looking at threats to Canada’s democratic institutions, including the use of deceptive deepfakes — hyper-realistic generated images and videos — to fool voters.

The updated threat assessment echoes those early warnings and points to the troubling trend of deepfake pornography. 

“Canadian public figures, especially women and members of the 2SLGBTQI+ community, are at heightened risk,” said the report, which could “deter participation in democracy for those targeted.” 

The warning follows a report from the foreign interference inquiry, which investigated cases of meddling in Canada’s elections.

Commissioner Justice Marie-Josée Hogue wrote that while foreign interference is concerning, misinformation and disinformation “pose an even greater threat to democracy.”