As a researcher--and we look basically at our federal institutions--how would you say we should ever go about cleaning them up? Would there be directives that departments should have on how to ensure that information is first of all protected, and secondly that it would be destroyed if it's not relevant?
It's not unusual that you would call a government department, and they would say that you have called six times before on certain dates. All the information is somewhere in a big data bank that departments have, and I would suspect they don't share it from department to department. Maybe they do between Revenue Canada and say Service Canada under the EI legislation.
What concerns would you have, and what might you suggest could be made as a part of a mandate to ensure that individuals have their privacy at least safeguarded, and maybe withdrawn?
I think we talked the other day here about somebody who had smoked a joint back in 1974—