Evidence of meeting #29 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 product.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canpages Inc.
What does “civic number” mean?
Bloc
Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
It is the number that appears in front of a house—the address street number.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canpages Inc.
In our opinion, that number is not confidential or private information. On the contrary, it is public information that allows someone to find a house.
Most of the street numbers of buildings that can be seen relate to businesses located on commercial streets, but it is possible that a dentist, doctor or other people may live or be located at a specific address. The building number is important in order for people to locate a specific place.
Bloc
Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
My last question has to do with the images that you blur. I would like to know if you systematically remove images of young children—for example, a young child on a bike living in the area in question. In order to not make that area vulnerable to criminals or criminalized groups, do you take any particular action to blur children's images in your systems?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canpages Inc.
That is a good question. My answer is that our blurring system is so effective that there is no possibility of recognizing a child. I believe all of that is completely covered by the general blurring principle. I don't think there is any such thing as a half-blurred or fully-blurred picture. Blurring is full and complete. So, whether it is a child, an individual or a specific region, there is no need to do anything further because, after blurring, there is no possibility of recognizing someone.
Bloc
Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
I would also ask Mr. Lister to answer that question.
Managing Director and Head of Google Canada, Google Inc.
Absolutely.
If I may, I just want to remark on the first part of your question. You used the word “film”, and I just want to make sure the committee understands that we're not filming anything; we're taking still photographs. These are static images, not dynamic images: they're not film. I just want to make sure the committee understands these are photographs.
On the last question, I concur with Mr. Vincent. We are blurring all images of identifiable individuals, so we're not making a distinction between adults and children. We're blurring all images. Additionally, people have the ability to easily take down an image. So if there's an image that they're still troubled or concerned by for whatever reason, they have the ability to take it down very simply and very easily. On every Street View image, we have this “report a problem” link that takes you to a very simple page, and we often respond and take those images down within 24 hours. So we take this very, very seriously.
Bloc
Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Mr. Vincent, you referred to ads in the newspapers or on the Internet. If you are photographed on a commercial street, how can you ensure that information flyers are distributed so that people understand that shooting will be occurring on their street?
You talk about removing images, but do you explain to people that is possible to have images removed and tell them how to make such a request?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canpages Inc.
That is a good question that I would like to answer in two parts.
First of all, the process has to have a reasonable dimension. Even though we do not operate at a global scale, our operations are not confined to the national level either. It would be very difficult to imagine having another vehicle drive in front of the one doing the shooting to distribute information flyers to everybody. I do not think that is necessary, considering that people's images will all be blurred. There is a limit beyond which that kind of thing becomes unreasonable. It is important that you know—and I think you can well imagine—that the cost is quite considerable for that kind of operation.
Furthermore, when we do communicate with the public, we focus on the fact that people can go on line and make whatever comment they wish with respect to withdrawing their own images or even another image that they deem to be inappropriate. Our communication with the public does include the fact that changes can be made subsequently.
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Lister and Mr. Vincent, for being here.
It's good to have a representative of the business community from Burnaby--my constituency--especially an innovative and growing business from Burnaby. It's good to have you here.
I wanted to come back to the issue of dealing with complaints and the speed of removal.
Mr. Lister, I think the phrase you used was “often within 24 hours” in terms of removing images when you have a complaint. Is there any consistency about that? How many complaints do you get? How long does it take to remove these?
Managing Director and Head of Google Canada, Google Inc.
It's a very quick process to lodge a complaint, to put a complaint in, and we respond as quickly as we're able. It depends on the volume.
One of the ways we are trying to further protect privacy and further demonstrate our commitment to privacy protections is that on the day of launch, we will have more people working. We obviously expect an increased volume of requests or queries on that day.
We're doing things like that to further demonstrate our commitment to the privacy protections.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
I think for both services there's a place on the screen where you can actually click to be linked to the complaint process.
Mr. Vincent, can you demonstrate for us where that is on your particular version of this?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canpages Inc.
Definitely.
As I'm doing that, let me add that we also have a process to be able to remove that within 24 hours, or even faster than that. We don't want to go beyond 24 hours.
We also give the possibility for people to blur an entire building, if they want, or something else that is not necessarily their face. At that time, we want to be able to make a verification. We would be concerned that businesses would want to blur, for instance, their competitor's window; it's a competitive world out there. We need to have a process to make sure that nothing is done before we have a chance to verify it.
On every screen--you can see it's on the bottom right--you have a chance to report a concern. You'll be able to attach the photo that you're concerned about. If it's a privacy concern, or inappropriate content concern, or another concern, you will be able to describe what it is and put in your e-mail address. There is a little security feature here to make sure it's not a computer doing that. Then you submit your request. It's sent to you right away.
Let me conclude by saying that despite millions of page views, we haven't had a single concern to date.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Okay.
Now, you said that you were going to do a bit of a verification process around that. Does the verification process only apply to commercial complaints? It doesn't apply to personal ones, so there'd be no attempt to verify if it was a legitimate concern being raised?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canpages Inc.
If it's a complaint about a person, we'll do extra blurring right away. We don't care about it: we are not interested in people.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Okay.
Mr. Lister, is the same true of Google? Is there any attempt to verify the concerns that are raised?
Managing Director and Head of Google Canada, Google Inc.
In the case of removing images, again, to demonstrate our commitment to privacy protections, we are going to err on the side of an individual's privacy. We're going to take down those images.
I think the only circumstances under which we wouldn't take an image down are where we are confident that they're fraudulent. We do have customer service representatives who look at these claims. Unless they are confident that the claims are fraudulent—for instance, if someone tries to take down the CN Tower, we're probably not going to let them do it—we will take them down. For legitimate concerns that come in, whether it's their home, themselves, their family, their car, we'll honour those and take them down.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Mr. Lister, where does Google currently hold its unblurred images? Are they held in Canada or are they held offshore someplace?
Managing Director and Head of Google Canada, Google Inc.
In all likelihood, they are held in the U.S., but these are all held on Google servers in Google server farms, which are arguably some of the safest places anywhere to hold data.
Google doesn't take just privacy seriously, it also takes security seriously. The protocols and innovation that we apply to securing our physical presence and our digital data are, as you might imagine, world-leading. Right down to the access that is permitted to that data, the hardware that the data sits on, and how we process the flow or the traffic of data, it is all highly structured, highly regulated, and industry-leading.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Google server farms is an image that's new to me as a techno peasant, but it's an interesting one.
Mr. Vincent, I think you work with MapJack, is that correct? You said that the images are destroyed. Does MapJack have copies of the images, or are all images destroyed before they're posted on the Internet?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canpages Inc.
Absolutely, all images are destroyed afterwards.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Is that an electronic blurring process, or does the disc go to...? That's probably not the language....
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canpages Inc.
That's a very precise and technical process that consists of erasing the files and making sure they can't be recovered. It's clearly described by contract with our partner on that.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Mr. Lister, when you say “adequate but not excessive time”, can you give us a definition of that? It's a pretty broad statement.
