Evidence of meeting #38 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
I would be pleased to do so if there is some time remaining. If not, that is allright.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
You talked in your earlier comments about the importance of foreign countries providing written, formal, detailed, and public documents under the agreements we have with other countries. We had CSIS and the RCMP here, and they made the statement that sometimes you simply can't do that. Sometimes these countries won't agree to having public documents or written documents. Sometimes it's simply not timely: the nature of the potential emergency or concern is such that you can't go through an iterative process of negotiation and drafting and that sort of thing.
How would you respond to those concerns? Your recommendation is that their worst fear would become reality: that they would have to have written, formal, detailed, and public documents with foreign countries.
Chair, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association
Without knowing the specifics, it's difficult to comment upon what countries would not agree and the reasons they might not agree, but that would need to be carefully assessed against the requirements of accountability. So it is certainly something that would be of interest if there are any large numbers of democratic countries that would be refusing to enter into such an agreement.
On the other hand, would it equally be of interest if this were simply one or two isolated incidents? More information is needed. And on the issue of timeliness, again, what the law attempts to achieve is a framework of general guidance. Will it cover each and every situation? Perhaps not, but the law attempts to achieve the best balance it can using the words that are available to us to create this general framework.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
I understand your point. I think the point they're trying to make is that the vast majority of nations in the world do not have privacy legislation like we have or anything comparable, so there would be numerous examples of countries that might just throw up their hands and say “Sorry, we're not interested.” Then when you have to debate whether we fulfill the Privacy Act or whether we protect and secure Canadian citizens, it's not a difficult debate in their minds. So I think there is more discussion that needs to happen on that front.
I want to draw to your attention—and perhaps you're not familiar with this particular decision—that there was a case, Murdoch v. Canada, specifically the RCMP, in 2005, where the RCMP wrongfully disclosed personal information about an individual to their employer. Mr. Murdoch took this case to court, and the court found that the Privacy Act did not allow for Mr. Murdoch to claim damages for this breach of privacy.
Do your recommendations suggest that individuals like Mr. Murdoch should have an opportunity to seek damages under these circumstances?
Treasurer, National Privacy and Access Law Section, Canadian Bar Association
The specific recommendation that deals with the ability to go to the Federal Court is the commissioner's recommendation 2, on page 6. It's not a model that is designed in order to seek damages or to seek compensation. It's a model that is intended to make sure that those within government organizations or government institutions can be compelled to follow the particular law. It's not based on a model of damage compensation or otherwise, and it's not a point we spent any significant amount of time on.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
So you're not suggesting that it be incorporated into the changes, that there be an opportunity for Canadians, where they felt it necessary, to find redress from the courts. I know it's not in your recommendations, but in addition, your own thoughts are not that we should have such an amendment?
Treasurer, National Privacy and Access Law Section, Canadian Bar Association
No, certainly it wasn't anything that was identified as a priority with respect to reforming the Privacy Act, so it wasn't something any particular attention was focused on.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
Fair enough.
Mr. Chair, I'll pass the balance of my time to the next member.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Thank you, Vice-Chair.
I'm happy to share with Madame Lavallée if there are a few minutes left.
When I first got here, I moved a private member's bill to deal with a database for missing persons. There isn't one that exists federally. There is some semblance of that provincially. There are some provincial jurisdiction issues.
One of the things that surprised me was that there were privacy issues, in a sense, around those who didn't want to be found and have gone missing because they're hiding from an abusive relationship, for example. But for the vast majority.... As an example, there's an individual right now in Hamilton who is pushing hard that she has DNA of a missing son that could be used to maybe find him. Otherwise you have to rely on information or go to different morgues across the country to see if the individual might be there, and so on and so forth.
It doesn't solve all the problems, but my question to you today would be, based on the Privacy Act, since you have some experience with it, and these recommendations that you have in front of me, do you foresee that they would in any way hinder my goal of adding a missing persons database to what is there already?
As you know, there's a database for criminals, sex offenders and a number of others. I want to have a more positive database that individuals can access if they have DNA of individuals who are missing.
Do you foresee, from the association's point of view or any of these recommendations, that there are any issues dealing with that concept?
Treasurer, National Privacy and Access Law Section, Canadian Bar Association
Are you proposing a database...if the relatives of missing people can have the particulars of the individuals put in the database?
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
I'll give you an example. Let's say my daughter goes missing. The rule of thumb is that most missing people are found within a few days or a few months. Then what you'd call missing long term is after a year. One way or another, 80% are found within the year.
Let's say I have a brush with my daughter's hair in it. I want to take it to the RCMP for the missing persons database. I want them to do a DNA analysis of my daughter's hair. If my daughter is found at a crime scene, or in a farmer's field, or in a morgue, I'd like to be notified so that I can put closure to my family's tragedy.
There are some issues here. For instance, men or women can leave abusive relationships and assume different names and so on and so forth. So if the person is found alive--this is in my bill--they have to give permission to the person who's been looking for them. But if the person who has been found is deceased, the family members are notified.
Does your organization have any view on that? Does anything you're recommending in here on the Privacy Act--I know this will have to be a quick review--affect that at all, do you think?
Treasurer, National Privacy and Access Law Section, Canadian Bar Association
Hypothetical examples are almost never as simple as they seem on the surface.
As for a quick review of our recommendations and whether I see them having a significant impact on that, no, I don't.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Thank you.
I'll share whatever time I have left with Madame Lavallée.
Conservative
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Allright. I had some one, two and three-minute questions. I'm going to choose a question that will take only one minute.
In your brief, you did not refer whatsoever to the destruction of personal information. The current act does not say much about this issue. Section 6(3) is the only place where reference is made to the destruction of information. It reads as follows:
(3) A government institution shall dispose of personal information under the control of the institution in accordance with the regulations and in accordance with any directives or guidelines issued by the designated minister in relation to the disposal of that information.
I did not consult the English version, but in the French version, the word "retrait" is used. I find it odd that this word is used in the French version in order to refer to the destruction of information. Not much reference is made to this issue and there is no obligation, as is the case in the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, to ensure that documents are destroyed in accordance with the rules. A great deal of information is leaked when it is being destroyed.
What are your comments on this issue?
Treasurer, National Privacy and Access Law Section, Canadian Bar Association
I hope I have fully understood your question.
We have put in a recommendation with respect to safeguarding personal information. An important aspect of safeguarding information is to make sure that it's safely and appropriately destroyed when it's no longer needed. That also goes hand in hand with the necessity requirement, that information should really only be collected and used if it's necessary. If it's no longer necessary, it should no longer be kept. At the end of that, principles of safeguarding would require that information to be destroyed.
PIPEDA also permits that information to be made anonymous, to have all the identifiers taken out. Statistical information can be very useful at the end of the day, so you're not throwing out all the value of the information, you're just removing the personal identifiers, which is analogous to its destruction. But destruction is an important part.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative David Tilson
Thank you very much, sir.
The Canadian Bar Association has done well. We always appreciate the representatives who come and give us their wisdom, and you two are no exception. Thank you very much for coming.
The meeting is adjourned until Thursday at 3:30 in this room.