Evidence of meeting #47 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was problem.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Philippa Lawson  Executive Director, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic
John Lawford  Counsel, Canadian Consumer Initiative

9:50 a.m.

Liberal

Glen Pearson Liberal London North Centre, ON

Okay. Then I won't go into it.

Ms. Lawson, you talked about class action. I know Mr. Lawford said one of the things you want to do is not put too much onus on the consumer. Yet it seems to me a class action almost does that. Is it not true? Could you speak to that?

I know this is popular in the United States. It's not as popular up here. Could you help me with that?

9:50 a.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic

Philippa Lawson

We have a number of class actions. Quebec is actually the jurisdiction in Canada that is the furthest ahead with class actions. A number of consumers have achieved remedies through that.

Class actions are in fact specifically designed to empower consumers to make it easier for consumers to stop bad practices and get redress, first of all, by allowing them to obtain legal representation without cost and to be represented automatically as part of the class, even if they make no effort to initially obtain it.

But all you need is one person who represents a whole class of consumers who were subjected to the illegal practice to take the matter to court and retain a class action lawyer. The lawyers will generally take responsibility for the case and will take it forward, typically on a contingency fee basis, and proceed with it in that way. It in fact removes the burden from the individual consumer and obtains redress for the wide class of consumers.

9:50 a.m.

Liberal

Glen Pearson Liberal London North Centre, ON

Mr. Lawford, you spoke about the Federal Trade Commission in the United States. On this matter that you and I discussed here in my previous question, about the SIN number or the biometric card, you said there's not necessarily one particular way. You could see a series of options of how to do that. How do they handle it?

9:55 a.m.

Counsel, Canadian Consumer Initiative

John Lawford

The FTC, at the moment, I believe, has not come out in favour of a similar situation in the States, with the Real ID Act. That idea was, again, that you would be able to use driver's licences that were approved and had a biometric in them for a lot of purposes in the United States, and I believe the FTC came out against it. I would have to check for you.

In terms of your question, how do they handle it, I'm not quite sure what you mean. How do they handle—?

9:55 a.m.

Liberal

Glen Pearson Liberal London North Centre, ON

How is it that people's identity, then, can be protected if we're not—?

Go ahead.

9:55 a.m.

Counsel, Canadian Consumer Initiative

John Lawford

What the FTC does is funnel people to one place, so they say if you have a complaint about identity theft, please tell us, we'll take statistics—and they do. It's the number one hit when you Google identity theft; you get FTC's home page on identity theft.

That's where people go. They know what they're doing. They do take action against individual businesses because they have their consumer protection legislation. Section 5 of their Federal Trade Act says you have to protect consumers, and they have had prosecutions under that; for example, I think Card Systems in the United States had a loss with ChoicePoint. They did start prosecutions. That would be helpful here if we had an agency like that. They said their total sum data practices were negligent in this situation and it was in violation of their Federal Trade Act.

So that's their approach. It's enforcement, it's information gathering, and it's tips for consumers and for business as well.

9:55 a.m.

Liberal

Glen Pearson Liberal London North Centre, ON

And did they have recommendations to make about, for example, a biometric card--that it's the best thing--or a social insurance number? You suggested other options. Did they make recommendations?

9:55 a.m.

Counsel, Canadian Consumer Initiative

John Lawford

I'd have to look and see. I think they came out against the Real ID Act, which is a biometric-type of solution, but I would have to double-check for you.

9:55 a.m.

Liberal

Glen Pearson Liberal London North Centre, ON

Okay.

Ms. Lawson, I have a final question, if I have time. You are talking about how businesses need to take more responsibilities, and so on, so it doesn't fall so much on the consumer. One of the things that many of us have been concerned about here is the onerous weight that actually puts on small businesses to be able to do that. Could you speak to that issue?

9:55 a.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic

Philippa Lawson

I think it's usually large businesses that are implicated, or at least the cases we hear about. It's usually large databases, larger business, credit-granting institutions that run into trouble, so I'm not sure we're talking about a huge burden on small business.

Again, what we're talking about when we're looking at data protection law enforcement is doing what's common sense anyway, what's good for the business and what's good for your customers.

9:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel

Thank you.

Mr. Lawford, perhaps you wouldn't mind checking. If you can get those answers, perhaps you could contact our researchers and give them the answer.

Thank you.

Mr. Van Kesteren.

9:55 a.m.

Conservative

Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for coming again.

It becomes pretty apparent that this is a three-stool approach to a solution.

First of all, we need to make consumers aware, and I agree with your recommendation. I think that's prudent and that's something that needs to be done very soon, and we should take the initiative to do that.

Secondly, yes, I think there must be responsibility to corporations and those that handle credit information.

Thirdly, we mustn't forget one element that needs to be addressed, and continuously needs to be addressed in society, and that's the criminal element. There is a private member's bill, Bill C-299. Are you familiar with that? Do you understand that it deals with phishing and it deals with I think the phone soliciting, the pretext. How do you feel about that? Are we heading off in the right direction? Are we pretty excited about that now?

May 15th, 2007 / 9:55 a.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic

Philippa Lawson

I absolutely support that, but I think it's only one piece of the puzzle. It's certainly not the full solution on the criminal law side, and I understand that the Department of Justice is looking at all of the potential Criminal Code amendments that could give the police the tools they need to pursue identity thieves. We know from our research that there are many more possible ways in which the Criminal Code could be amended to help law enforcement go after the criminals in this area. Pretexting, absolutely, is one of the ways, and we support Bill C-299.

9:55 a.m.

Conservative

Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON

Secondly, and you touched on this, too, there are some pretty exciting new technologies that are available: the national ID card, and you mentioned the biometric ID, radio frequency identification devices. Then I was reading through your brief and there's a note of caution. You seem to be somewhat reluctant to move in that direction: national identity cards, biometric identifiers, integrated government databases have all been suggested as methods by which to reduce the incidents of ID theft; however, these initiatives raise serious privacy issues and should not therefore be taken without thorough public consultation, debate and careful consideration of their dangers in terms of civil liberties and freedom from state control.

I wonder if you could elaborate on that. You seem to be a little reluctant to move in that direction. I wonder why.

10 a.m.

Counsel, Canadian Consumer Initiative

John Lawford

I think at the end of your statement you mentioned its effect on civil liberties, and that's the main concern there: it's a bit outside the field of identity theft. We're also concerned that it won't necessarily lead to the magic bullet, if you will, about identity theft, again because it's not just that someone gets a hold of your identification; it's also that it's very easy to then obtain credit. It's difficult for the victim after they've been victimized to remove past traces of credit and to rehabilitate their credit. So the identity theft objection we have to using biometrics and national identity cards is that on one side there's, again, the public security point of view from civil society that this is not the way to go to monitor people to that extent. We're concerned that it will become a way to track you through your daily life, if you will, because you'll have to present your identity card everywhere you go, and it's then easy to trail people, and that has implications for civil liberties. Then, on the other hand, it may not solve identity theft altogether.

10 a.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic

Philippa Lawson

Could I just add one point to this? It could in fact make the problem worse, as John stated. Victims have trouble enough right now when their social insurance number has been compromised, for example, dealing with that. Imagine if your biometric identity is compromised, and I can guarantee you it will be. None of these technical solutions is perfect. It will be an absolute nightmare for people to deal with identity theft of their biometric identifier.

10 a.m.

Conservative

Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON

Do I have a little more time, Mr. Chair?

10 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel

Yes, 45 seconds.

10 a.m.

Conservative

Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON

We're trying to find a balance here. The consumer, too, has to take some responsibility.

John, you were mentioning you were a little bit concerned about tracking people, but we still have cash. I really don't care if somebody knows I go from Ottawa to Chatham, then I take off to Detroit. If I do, I can choose to use cash. Some of these methods really seem to offer some promising solutions. I don't think I've heard enough yet to convince me that this is not the direction we should be going in.

10 a.m.

Counsel, Canadian Consumer Initiative

John Lawford

Very briefly, I can say that I'm not convinced that it's a good idea to leave that trail and that there are more concerns about it, especially as you combine databases. It's possible you can cross-reference your calling records with your movements that day with all sorts of things, and I think there are more implications to this that can be bad in certain situations than we're thinking about.

As far as using cash is concerned, you can't use cash over the Internet and you can't use cash in a lot of businesses—they want to take a credit card—so you're leaving a trail there.

I don't know if that answers your question.

10 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel

Madame Lavallée.

10 a.m.

Bloc

Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC

You have mentioned PhoneBusters on a number of occasions. I imagine that the image is very clear in English, but I do not understand; is there a French equivalent?

10 a.m.

Counsel, Canadian Consumer Initiative

John Lawford

Actually, even in English, PhoneBusters is a little old as a concept. When they started, the group was set up to deal with telephone fraud. It has evolved since and now receives complaints about identity theft. So the English name could well be replaced by something more appropriate.

10 a.m.

Bloc

Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC

I just want to understand what it is. Is it an agency, a government organization, a not-for-profit group?

10 a.m.

Counsel, Canadian Consumer Initiative

John Lawford

It used to be an agency of the Ontario Provincial Police, but I think that now it also works with the RCMP. As I said, it is a little vague, it has evolved in the last few years. It would be best to check.