Evidence of meeting #22 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 privacy.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Ms. Stoddart, we are not required to deal only with the estimates. You are the Privacy Commissioner and I can ask you questions about matters other than the estimates in order to get clarification.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
My annual reports contain many examples of matters involving the government, but the reports often appear 18 months after the events have taken place. A very common example, one that concerns me a great deal, is the security of personal information within the government. We know that there are failures in the requirement for personal information to be kept confidential and that the failures can occur in different ways. In my annual reports, I have described incidents of laptop computers containing taxpayers' information being left in some employees' cars.
I have also reported on more structural matters in my audit reports, such as protection measures, or the lack of them. I reported, for example, on the passport office and our vulnerability, in some of our points of service overseas, with regard to the protection of personal information. It seems to me that the process, which is now instantaneous, could be updated a little. Everything is virtual now. There is something profoundly anachronistic about producing a report 18 months after the fact.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
I would like to talk to you about something more immediate, something that you are familiar with and have already touched on. On April 30, the federal government ended its online passport program. An internal document obtained by Canadian Press indicates that the program was abolished because of a breach of confidentiality.
Earlier, you said that you have hired 20 new investigators. You were waiting to see Passport Canada's final report on the matter on March 31. That report has still not been submitted, has it?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
No, we still have not received it.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
We are still waiting for the second report, the one that followed our 2008 audit.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
The date is November 29, 2007. Someone from Ontario indicated that there had been a failure in the confidentiality requirement. Since that time, you have not received a report. Is the investigation still underway? Will you have the documentation? Will the change to your recommendation five make it possible for the public to be told what happened?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
We have received one part of the report. We are still waiting for the second part, dealing with the work that Passport Canada should have done.
Yes, this is an example. If the act were amended as I recommend, I would be able to inform Canadians and Parliament. There has been talk of providing reports every three months—that remains to be seen—and of providing the public, through Parliament, with up-to-date information on security and confidentiality at Passport Canada.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
If I understand you correctly, you did a quick investigation when the matter came to light on November 29, 2007, and you could have come before Parliament and told Canadians there was a problem with online passport requests. Is that correct?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes, we could have. Often, when a problem is pointed out to us, we cannot immediately say what caused it or how to solve it. We could certainly have provided information more quickly about what was happening at Passport Canada.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
With 20 new investigators, how come the report is not finished yet? This all started in November 2007 and it is now May 2009. Why have two years gone by between the incident being revealed and the report on it?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
We have made a number of approaches to Passport Canada, but I do not think that we have done a formal investigation of a breach of online confidentiality. We checked, though. We were able to find out that Passport Canada was addressing the matter. We received one report, if memory serves, and we are waiting for a second. There are a number of ways to supervise the legislation or make sure that it is being enforced.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
As you know, someone already got access to 23 people's information. A reporter was cross-checking that information and obtained access to the information of five others. We are talking about driver's licences, health cards and all the other personal information that we routinely give to Passport Canada. Then this kind of breach occurs. It seems to me that this could have been made public much sooner, before Canadian Press submitted an access to information request.
Why did you not say anything about it? Why did it take Canadian Press looking for a document through access to information to make these things public as a result?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Mr. Vincent, the case is two years and I find it difficult to give you an answer right now. From what I remember, we found out about the problem in the media and then got involved ourselves.
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for coming back, Commissioner, with Mr. Pulcine.
I want to ask a couple of questions that came out of your statement this morning and the documents you provided. In the chart on page 5 of the extra information you provided, you noted that in the analysis of complaints with regard to the Privacy Act, complaints are down and the backlog is down 42% over last year. With regard to PIPEDA, complaints are down by 40%. It sounds like good progress.
What's your goal in that area? Is that progress continuing since the year-end in March?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes. This is the number one operational priority for my office. Our goal is to get rid of the backlog as soon as possible, and in any case—in all cases—by the end of fiscal year 2010.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Okay, 2010. When you talk about getting rid of the backlog, what's the timeframe for processing? I guess there are always going to be some complaints that take longer than others. What's your definition of getting rid of the backlog?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Getting rid of the backlog means there are no active complaints over a year, certainly in PIPEDA; over a year or less in the Privacy Act; and in something called time complaints, where it's possibly simply to complain that you didn't get the information on time, I would say it's over eight months.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
I wonder if you could take us through the chart on the employment equity numbers for your office. You mentioned them, and they look interesting and positive. Maybe you could highlight for us what has happened there.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Thank you. I'd be happy to do so, because we have made some progress over the years.
Under the federal government employment standards, particular attention has to be given to these four employment groups because of either their historic under-representation or their historic negative situation in the labour market. You'll see with the first one, which is women.... In fact, I was joking that we should perhaps go the other way and have affirmative action for men, because we are a very feminine office. More than two thirds of our staff are women. That's probably because a large part of the support staff is feminine, traditionally. It remains traditionally feminine. But in the scientific, professional, and management categories, it's more evenly divided between men and women.
In terms of the aboriginal group, we have managed to be above the labour market availability. That is parsed for the particular area in which we recruit. It's called a recruitment shed. So those would not be across Canada but those you could recruit in the national capital region.
In terms of persons with disabilities, again we have above the representative share.
And finally, in terms of visible minorities, we have a quite a few, which I think is very important as we talk to Canadians across the country, particularly in urban areas. They're very good spokespeople for us, and they represent the office well in terms of giving a diversified face to it.
I think these statistics are based more on 2001 census data. With the more recent census data that we haven't yet received, the gap may diminish.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Did this happen by accident or was it deliberate that you have what look to be fairly positive numbers?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
No. This is one of the questions this committee brought up quite a while ago, so particularly in the categories of aboriginals, persons with disabilities, and visible minorities, we made an effort to encourage those groups to apply and also to retain them when they worked for us as students, as contract workers, and so on, with their being qualified, of course. But we were particularly interested in them for that reason.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Do you know of other workplaces in the public service or in similar commissions where a majority of women are in a particular workplace?
