Evidence of meeting #27 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 police.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:40 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
That's great timing. Thank you very much, Mr. Andrews.
We still have a few minutes left. I've decided that we should go until we can't go any further, so it's the Conservatives' turn, with Mr. Calandra again.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
Thank you very much.
Can we inquire with Bell and Telus, before they come, if they actually have something like this?
I don't know if you guys would know if they actually do something like this.
11:40 a.m.
Senior Vice-President, Regulatory and Chief Privacy Officer, Rogers Communications Inc.
We're the first, so I think they'll put one together now.
11:40 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
That's a very good idea, and it's obviously something we might even consider in our report. I appreciate it.
I just want to go, again, more into the....
I'm sorry. I feel guilty and maybe I should make a disclosure, Mr. Chair. I used to work at Rogers when I was in high school and university, on the telephones trying to put through cable requests. I will admit that even back then—this is the reason I feel guilty—Rogers was really hard core when it came to people's privacy. I thought they had, at that point, one of the most advanced systems I had ever seen.
When I got into the provincial government, I brought government ministers in to see how your systems work—and this was back in 1995 or 1996—to protect people's privacy and make it easier for people to get information. I have always felt that you guys were a leader in that area.
I want to deal with the name and address check again, because this is the one that has caused much of people's concern.
On this side of it, you're basically just confirming something so that police know where they're going. You're just talking about a time-saving mechanism, so that in certain cases the police avoid extraordinary duplicate information or avoid going to multiple sources when they can just come to you and make sure that they get the right information so that they get the warrant. You are still in essence protecting people's charter rights, but you're providing basic information for the police.
11:40 a.m.
Senior Vice-President, Regulatory and Chief Privacy Officer, Rogers Communications Inc.
That's correct, sir.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
Yes, and it's not government widely coming in, snooping, and saying.... Paul Calandra is not calling through to Rogers and saying, this is the information I want. It's just emergency services and government institutions that have legislative power to do so.
11:40 a.m.
Senior Vice-President, Regulatory and Chief Privacy Officer, Rogers Communications Inc.
Yes. It's primarily police.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
Can you just explain, because metadata...? Can either one of you explain what the power of...? I'm again now ultimately embarrassed, because I should.... I keep getting different definitions of what damage this could do.
Colin, or both of you, from your point of view, talk to me about metadata and why I have to be traumatized by it.
11:40 a.m.
Head, Public Policy and Government Relations, Google Inc.
I think in the context of your study today on identify theft, metadata is an element, but a small element, of what is used to construct an identity. If someone is trying to engage in identity theft, there are very specific pieces of information that they need to know about an individual or need to create concerning an identify in order to create a viable, semi-functioning cyber organism.
Metadata itself is more about the transactions. It's more about your interests. It's more about the transmission of the data. In particular contexts, that can be extremely relevant, as in the case of IP addresses, but it is less relevant in terms of your search preferences, your search results, maybe even your location history. The reason you have heard many different definitions of it is that within the context of whom you're speaking to and within the way it is applied, it can have very many different and many constructive applications.
11:45 a.m.
Senior Vice-President, Regulatory and Chief Privacy Officer, Rogers Communications Inc.
So, for the telephone system, metadata is not what you say on the call. It is whom you are calling, who called you, and the relationship between the callers. It can even be where you called from.
Metadata is a very useful law enforcement tool. If they think that a person is a suspect and they know that someone else was definitely involved in the crime, if those two people call each other, that is an important tool for the police.
Again, we would only provide metadata with a warrant or an order. We would never provide metadata without a warrant or order.
11:45 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
We'll have to stop you there. Not only is your five minutes up, but I see that the bells are in fact ringing and the lights are flashing. This isn't an optional thing for us: when the bells go, we have to scamper.
We want to thank both Rogers Communications and Google for taking the time and making the effort to help us as we continue with this very important study. We very much benefited from your input, as always. We offer our thanks to you and your organizations for helping us today.
I'm going to adjourn the meeting, and we won't be reconvening after the votes, ladies and gentlemen. I'll see you on Tuesday.
The meeting is adjourned.