Industry committee  Currently, PIPEDA is based in large part on the concept that information is to be collected and used with the consent of the individual to whom it pertains, and that deals with a private organization. That concept is not defined; nevertheless, it has been the subject of many investigations and pronouncements by the office.

Industry committee  Thank you for the question. Frankly, I haven't read the amendment proposed in the B.C. legislation, so I can't comment on that particular formulation, but I'll say a few things. Point one, the Spencer decision is a huge development for privacy law. It is very helpful; it has set already very good parameters for the collection of information without warrants, by prescribing that police agencies—the state—need a warrant to collect information when that information relates to the activities and interests of individuals on the Internet.

Industry committee  Certainly several years ago. I understand this bill is the outcome of a five-year review of PIPEDA called for in the original legislation. Certainly I support the bill, subject to two amendments, but generally I support this bill. Some of the provisions in this bill are overdue in my opinion, particularly the requirement for mandatory notification in the case of breaches.

Industry committee  I think there are two main amendments that are very necessary and that will be helpful for us to implement and apply. I refer to the obligation imposed on organizations to notify the OPC and the concerned individuals in the case of data breaches. We know from media reports and other information that data breaches are an important and growing phenomenon both for public and private institutions, and we think it will be an important progress in PIPEDA to have this regime of mandatory breach notification.

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to present our views on Bill S-4, An Act to amend the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act. With me today are Patricia Kosseim, senior general counsel, and Carman Baggaley, senior policy analyst.

Justice committee  I heard the testimony stating that the victims only want the criminal justice system to take better account of what has happened to them. I sympathize entirely with that viewpoint. I don't think there is much to be done with the public nature of the system in question. It is conceivable that certain victims of crime would be advised of the release of the person who assaulted them and that in that way the victim would consider that he is being better treated by the state and by the criminal justice system.

Justice committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen members of Parliament. With me today is Carman Baggaley, Senior Policy Analyst at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. My comments today will focus on the amendments proposed to the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, or SOIRA, and the creation of the High Risk Child Sex Offender Database.

Information & Ethics committee  Most of the reduction was related to the moving costs last year and will not come back, except in the form of repayment of the loan, which is about $200,000 a year for 15 years. However, approximately $4 million that was spent last year will not be spent again. The difference between $29 million and $24 million is about $5 million.

Information & Ethics committee  For the moment we can. In fact, we need to go through this exercise again and again because the demand, the number of complaints, the number of bills and so on is constantly changing. Currently, I think I have enough money to manage, but we need to go through this exercise continuously.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you. The OPC under Madame Stoddart had four such priorities, and they served the organization very well during her tenure. With my arrival, I think it's timely to modernize these priorities, and it was foreseen that this would be done even before I arrived. I intend to look at these priorities in light of the current environment and the current issues.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. We have quite a few activities on that front. For instance, with respect to youth, who are obviously big consumers of new technologies, we have products and we send material to schools and educators, who can use these to inform young people about privacy concerns. We have had many interactions with relatively large businesses over the years.

Information & Ethics committee  At this point, as I have said, we have increased our productivity with respect to complaints in relation to PIPEDA. Our productivity is up and the response time is down and the backlog has been reduced. I think we're going in the right direction. We have some challenges with respect to Privacy Act investigations.

Information & Ethics committee  It is actually at our request that this is being done.

Information & Ethics committee  The reporting centre is led by the CRTC and we were asked by the CRTC to contribute to it. We've offered this money to hire an analyst and we are getting the fruits of the work of that analyst in trends or potential investigations into spamming. So I think we're getting benefit from having that funded.