Information & Ethics committee  Well, it depends on whether or not you are a social media platform or not. We've been talking about Facebook a lot. Obviously, Facebook has quite a bit of data and has all of your profile information. They have that information. I certainly don't speak for Facebook, but my understanding is that for the most part, they keep that data to themselves.

Information & Ethics committee  What they provide to marketers is access to the platforms. They'll say to the marketers, “We won't give this to you, but you tell us what kind of people you want to hit, for example, members of the ethics committee, and we'll do our best to direct your ads to those people.” A similar thing is, if you are the marketer, obviously, you won't have that information.

Information & Ethics committee  It's hard to generalize, but for the most part, that is true. Again, that's a big piece of what the business is for those companies. Once they hand over that detailed information to another party, putting aside the privacy issues involved in that, they've given away the store, in a way.

Information & Ethics committee  I'll jump in. Certainly, one of the most difficult things is getting this balance exactly right. As a former chief privacy officer, I can tell you that it's extremely frustrating. On the one hand, you'll have people saying that it's too short, that you didn't disclose this and that.

Information & Ethics committee  Is it an option to do neither of those?

Information & Ethics committee  I would argue that we've come somewhat close, I think, to option number two in terms of simplifying and codifying an approach. This is exactly what PIPEDA does, recognizing that technology is evolving very rapidly and the legislative process will always be behind. PIPEDA takes the approach that sets out basic principles that all organizations must follow.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and honourable members. My name is David Elder and I am a communications and privacy lawyer with Stikeman Elliott here in Ottawa. I also act as special digital privacy counsel to the Canadian Marketing Association, and it is in this role that I appear before you today.