Evidence of meeting #24 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was fraud.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:35 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
Thank you, Madam Charmaine.
Would anybody else like to risk an opinion on that?
11:35 a.m.
President, TransUnion Canada
From a TransUnion perspective, the percentages would probably be similar to what Equifax has for a delivery of reports to consumers.
11:35 a.m.
Vice-President, Legal Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer, Equifax Canada Co.
Our files from our members are accessed 150,000 times per day, so in terms of members accessing information about you and me as individuals, it's 150,000 times per day. In terms of trade line updates, to give you some background, there are 50 million trade lines updated per month at Equifax.
11:40 a.m.
Murray Rowe
There's very little information on aboriginal communities, particularly first nations. Part of what we're trying to do is research this and gather the data so that we can have better empirical discussions. I doubt any of my colleagues or I could even comment from an aboriginal perspective exactly what the percentages are. I think they would be a fraction of what the rest of society would be.
11:40 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
Thank you very much, all of you.
Next, for the Conservative Party, is Laurie Hawn.
You have seven minutes, please, Laurie.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to all of our witnesses for being here.
I'd like to start with Equifax. Do you offer identify theft protection products and how much does that set somebody back?
11:40 a.m.
Vice-President, Legal Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer, Equifax Canada Co.
We do. There are two types of protection that we offer. There is a credit alert you can put on your consumer file across Canada for $5 plus applicable taxes. That stays on your file for six years unless you ask to have it removed.
There are also credit monitoring services, as I mentioned in my speaking notes, in regards to programs, where you have real, 24-7 access to your information. You're alerted when there's a change on your file, perhaps an application made in your name, perhaps a change of address because somebody's trying to change your address and mail your information to another address, and other instances like that. So there is the credit monitoring as well as the credit alert.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
At the risk of sounding like a commercial for Equifax, people who don't have that would presumably be less protected than those who do.
11:40 a.m.
President, Equifax Canada Co.
That's correct. There are optional add-on services to the basic package, everything from out-of-wallet and lost wallet insurance, and so on.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
For Mr. Rowe from Forrest Green, for first nations and a lot of the programs obviously that they participate in, the challenge is cultural, which leads to challenges in confidence and so on. Do you have any stats on first nations victims? We're talking about very low participation in the process. Are there any stats on victims within the first nations?
11:40 a.m.
Murray Rowe
I don't have any data on that. We've been looking quite aggressively and in fact we're trying to get a bit of a focus on this. I think part of what has to happen is that there's a culture on reserve, in particular. For example, we talked earlier in my presentation about 80% of many of the transactions they don't register with the federal government. They don't pay income tax. There are many different challenges of registration and the concept and benefits of it.
I think one of our goals, quite frankly, is that we're trying to now gather that information so that we can report back to organizations such as yours with more clarity. We're actively involved in this. We're doing it hopefully at a grassroots level. We don't want this to be pushed down onto the reserves. It takes longer, but our approach is to have it led by first nations and have chiefs and councils support these types of dialogues.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
That leads me to a second question I have. Is first nations involvement in the whole process, in terms of educating the people—training staff, getting people involved—is your organization...?
11:40 a.m.
Murray Rowe
It's not yet, but we have spoken with more than 20 bands. It's a long process. It's expensive, but we believe it's one of the fastest-growing demographics in the country. Ostensibly, there are somewhere between 500,000 and one million individuals who are invisible to the credit bureaus. This is staggering. I don't know any other group, other than maybe new immigrants, that have some of these challenges.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
I think it's safe to say that with the whole high-level of non-registration and so on, there may be a variety of reasons for that. But if we can convince first nations—and it will take time—that they're obviously better in the system than outside the system....
11:40 a.m.
Murray Rowe
Exactly.
I think land reform, quite frankly—and I mentioned this to the chair earlier—is one of the most exciting things coming down the pipe. The concept of individuals owning, or at least even leasing land.... It would be compliant with subsection 89(1.1), so we're talking about something that is possible, and it's within the Indian Act. I think to be unable to unleash billions of dollars in wealth and allow first nation communities to build equity in their homes and then to even be able to bequeath it to their children and grandchildren is incredible. Right now, they are prohibited from participating, in most cases.
We did an informal survey of five bands, and in some cases interest rates are 300% higher for aboriginal communities. By the way, this is even after ministerial loan guarantees take place, which means 100% backing from the crown. I don't understand some of the issues taking place. I think there is a systemic problem within the banking community and with the way the credit bureaus are gathering and distributing information, which I think we need to examine with aboriginal communities.
One of our goals is to better understand the problem and to get feedback directly from chiefs and councils, and we're aggressively doing that.
But this is not a short-term fix. We're talking about trying to change things and there is no quick win on this.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Nothing is, but I appreciate that. It was a very pertinent comment and I hope that will make it into the report somewhere.
11:45 a.m.
President, Equifax Canada Co.
Chair, maybe I could offer a suggestion just so that we are grounded in facts.
We could undertake a study, and if we know what the postal codes are for the reserves, we could identify the number of consumer reports of individuals who live on those reserves. We could take it to a more granular level—no fewer than 15 households, though—without permissible use of the data. We could undertake that study and it may shed some light. If you know the number of people on the reserve today, we could tell you how many have a report and provide some other statistics around that.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Would you suggest that as a recommendation for this committee to move forward on?
11:45 a.m.
Murray Rowe
I'd like to make a little point on that.
I think this is far more complex than what is taking place. One of the challenges is that credit bureaus base their information on Canada Post addressing standards. Canada Post doesn’t address on reserve. We have some fundamental issues that are taking place.
I love your approach. I compliment you on thinking of this, but I think the dialogue about what is taking place.... I think we have to work hand in hand with many of the committed individuals at Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada because we have some core issues. On reserves, there are no street numbers. There are no registered streets.
I think we need to step back. We need to look at things like P.O. boxes that are frequented by aboriginals, and first nations in particular, so those are some of the things we're working on. I think it's a very exciting time, but if we can get some support from the committee, that would be much appreciated.
11:45 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
That wraps up your time just about perfectly.
For the Liberal Party, go ahead, Scott Andrews.
May 27th, 2014 / 11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, guys. It's a very interesting panel we have this morning.
I want to go back to Laurie's question about credit alerts and credit monitoring, just to dive into both.
I'd like TransUnion to jump in on it too, because I think you mentioned as well that you have a fraud alert system, so I assume they're similar.
Is it fair to say that TransUnion and Equifax are the front line when fraud is about to happen to an individual? Would you say that you guys would be the first ones to be able to flag that an individual's credit is being used fraudulently? Is that a fair statement?