Evidence of meeting #13 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was system.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director, Policy and Privacy, B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association
Recommendations one and two, the Reid report, full order-making powers.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
I'm sorry, we did go a little over here. But I did promise Mr. Dechert one more question, so I took a little time off this to give him his slot.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Gogolek, earlier we mentioned the process known as amber-lighting, which is sometimes applied to access to information requests. Are you familiar with Professor Alasdair Roberts?
Director, Policy and Privacy, B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association
Yes.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
He's a Canadian academic, as you know, who is currently at Syracuse University. He said in 2003 in an article when he was referring to the CAIRS system and amber-lighting in particular: “No other country maintains a government-wide database like CAIRS. CAIRS is the product of a political system in which centralized control is an obsession.” He further said that the process known as amber-lighting is unjustifiable.
Could you comment on your views on amber-lighting?
By the way, those articles were dated in 2003 and 2005, under a previous administration.
Director, Policy and Privacy, B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association
I would like to. Unfortunately, I don't have full recall and I don't have the articles in front of me.
In terms of amber-lighting, the act should govern. If you're supposed to get your documents within x period of time, you should get them within that period of time. If the government is able to go off and prepare response lines in regard to what may come out of that within that period of time, there's no problem with that.
The problem is when something is sidetracked. When it's put on a siding where it doesn't go anywhere, where it's delayed, then there's a problem. That problem was identified in British Columbia regarding environmental groups. The commissioner made a mediation recommendation in that.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Right.
Mr. Rubin, were your requests ever amber-lighted in the past?
As an Individual
Sure. I'm one of the favourites, and so are political parties. The Reform Party, for instance, used to be on it all the time.
As an Individual
Near the beginning. Maybe it wasn't called amber-lighting. In Ontario it's called red alert. You can apply it to sensitive hot issues, whatever you want to call it.
As an Individual
This committee looked at the issue back in 2006, by the way. It's a problem. It isn't just a time-delay problem; it's a problem like you're trying to come to grips with two categories of fees, or multi-use by an access user. Where do you draw the line? If you're not going to treat every access request the same, then you have a system that's discriminatory and is creating barriers. Once you have one barrier, there will be other barriers. That's why this system is dysfunctional right now. That's why you need an administrative authority that isn't going to play games like this; it's just going to believe in proactive disclosure and get on with it. Most of the stuff is rather mundane, but it's important to the average Canadian, and it should be out.
Director, Policy and Privacy, B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association
Very briefly. This is also dealt with in Mr. Reid's bill, where the access coordinator is responsible and should be responsible for how the request is handled, but ultimately the request also has to go to the deputy minister and the minister for how these things happen.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Gentlemen, you've been very helpful, both of you. It's good we're not hearing the same thing from everyone.
We know the productivity and performance of our ATI system isn't meeting the public's expectations or standards that we would like to have. Some have blamed the act; some have blamed the commissioner; some are blaming the minister responsible for it; some are blaming PCO for lack of leadership, etc. There's lots of blame to go around, but I think we're committed to pushing for the consensus issues.
It looks as if Mr. Reid seems to have some support in all sectors. I think maybe we should continue our work to the extent possible, but ultimately any changes that are going to happen are going to have to be tabled in Parliament by the government.
Thank you kindly, gentlemen. You're excused.
We have a matter we want to deal with very quickly.
Colleagues, there was a notice from Mr. Poilievre about a motion. It is on our agenda. I took the time to do a little bit of background checking with the Privacy Commissioner's office. The Privacy Commissioner is away this week, but I did talk to the Deputy Privacy Commissioner. She advises me that they have been under negotiation with Google for some time with regard to the street-view project, and they have come to a preliminary agreement on three conditions. First is implementation of the blurring technology for faces, licence plates, and other personal private information. Second, prior to activation of the street view, Google would give the appropriate notice to the Canadian public. It is a blanket global public notice of what's happening and why. Third, they finally reached an agreement with regard to the retention of identifiable images, the original pictures: the software has to deal with them, but they wouldn't be allowed to retain the original images; they would have to start dropping off and not be kept at all. Those discussions are expected to be completed when the commissioner comes back.
I'm also told that internationally a group has been lodging complaints in every jurisdiction that has these services or similar surveillance systems. They fully expect a complaint will be lodged, and the Privacy Commissioner is fully preparing right now to launch an investigation, which means that the parties to that investigation and the complainants probably won't be discussing any of their issues with regard to the complaint before us. They will be doing it before the commissioner.
It is interesting, but as we all know, all the surveillance issues fall under PIPEDA, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, not the Privacy Act. Technically, the chair should rule Mr. Poilievre's motion out of order. Under the circumstances, though, there will be some developments over the next couple of weeks, and I think I'd like to defer the item until the Monday meeting when we return. We'll probably have a little more information about whether there's a problem.
I read from this report from the Deputy Privacy Commissioner that there isn't a problem with PIPEDA. They're telling me that PIPEDA, which was amended or changed substantially two Parliaments ago, is technology-neutral. The principles within the act and the standards to be met with regard to protecting personal information are very clear and can be applied in virtually any application or use of private information. So if we do this, it may involve a little bit more than one witness from one party. If we're going to do something here, I think any motion that comes before us should be a more precise motion, that a study be done should it be found that there is an identified concern about the video surveillance and related types of issues, and leave it at that, because then the committee can decide the scope of witnesses, the timing, etc.
I think most members probably would agree that once we deal with this on that Monday, we should leave it open to the chair to determine whether we would attempt to do that, should a gap appear in our time schedule before the summer, just to make sure that we use our time. So it will give us another item to work with.
Let's clean up the motion just a little bit and resubmit it, and we'll deal with it on the Monday we get back.
Go ahead, Mr. Poilievre.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
I'll be very brief.
I think what you've said sounds reasonable. I should put on the record, though, that we've been speaking with the Privacy Commissioner's office, right up until this afternoon, and they did not confirm that there was any sort of agreement whatsoever, even in principle. They also said that they will not give us any indication of how they would proceed with an investigation until a complaint is lodged. I think you've made the point that a complaint is almost inevitable, so this is going to come up.
It's hard to say whether PIPEDA deals with this. It does have specific exemptions for artistic, journalistic, and literary purposes. It does not have any for photographic or mapping systems, so there might be a problem in the act, and I emphasize might. If there is, I think we should be the first to study it and propose a solution. I should add that this technology is very exciting. It's good news for Canada that it's coming here. We want to ensure that it's a welcoming environment, while we protect the privacy of the Canadian people.
I'm not in a mad rush to have the study happen immediately. If we can work together over the next couple of weeks by phone and e-mail to propose wording that would be appropriate, and then perhaps fill a few of the days that we might have open between now and summer, that would be great. But I do think that a study would be welcome. If the matter is at some point resolved, that's even better. We can hear about the resolution in a one-day hearing.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Just for everybody's information, when these motions are brought forward, the more generic or broad the better. If you get a little too specific, we get stuck having to put forward amendments and subamendments as we try to work it through. Have a little consultation with fellow colleagues, and just keep it as banal as possible. I think that gives the committee the latitude to move in whatever direction seems appropriate as we move through our work.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Yes, we'll put it on for the Monday. But help me with the PIPEDA thing, because technically I have to rule it out of order, because it's not part of our current study.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Either we can move it outside of the current study or make it its own study.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
It can be either way. I think separate is fine.
Is everybody comfortable with that?
I have these binders on the in-and-out. Not all the materials have been translated yet. Over the two-week break, I'm going through them. I want to be sure that whatever you get is important for you to have and is properly translated for all honourable members.
Thank you.
The meeting is adjourned.