Thank you very much, committee members. My name is Jean Nelson, and I'm a member of the executive of the Canadian Bar Association's national privacy and access law section. I'm also a member of the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association's advocacy committee.
With me is Suzanne Morin, who is also a member of the national privacy section's executive.
Thank you very much for taking the time to hear from us today, especially on a very busy day. The CBA, as you might know, is a professional association of 36,000 lawyers. We represent a diversity of organizations, not-for-profits, members of the private bar, and corporate counsel. Our mandate includes upholding the rule of law in the administration of justice. It's from that perspective that we come to you today.
We want to speak in support of the objectives of Bill S-4, but we wish to also make some recommendations. Our recommendations are offered in the spirit of ensuring greater clarity for Canadians, Canadian businesses, and Canadian organizations. I am conscious of the time, so I will highlight two aspects of our written brief, which you should have before you. I will highlight disclosure without consent, and my colleague Ms. Morin will highlight breach notification. We'd be pleased to answer questions about any aspect of our brief.
First I will speak to disclosure without consent. We believe, in a nutshell, that this provision should be subject to further analysis in order to consider narrowing its scope. We are concerned that, as drafted, it's unnecessarily broad and will permit disclosure without consent in an inappropriately broad range of circumstances.
These new sections appear connected to the removal of the concept of investigative bodies from PIPEDA. You might recall that under that investigative body scheme, the Governor in Council could approve by regulation specific bodies or categories of bodies to which organizations could disclose personal information. These proposed new sections are consistent with CBA's position on this issue as expressed earlier, when it urged the government to consider the models used in Alberta and British Columbia. However, in our perspective, it doesn't quite hit the mark. We believe it requires finesse, as we said in our written brief. We would be pleased to work with Industry Canada and other stakeholders to achieve the appropriate balance.
We understand the need for the proposed additions, as major industries in Canada, such as banks, financial services, and other private sector organizations, need to share information to detect, suppress, and investigate fraud. We are of the view, however, that this provision should be more closely tailored to its actual purpose to prevent abuse of its broad wording.
Mr. Chair and committee members, that concludes my remarks. With your permission, I'd like to now invite Ms. Morin to amplify the CBA's perspective on breach notification in Bill S-4.