Evidence of meeting #10 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was year.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Has Canada taken any particular initiatives around cooperation and international enforcement, globalized enforcement, on these kinds of privacy issues that emerge?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes. A couple of years ago we were very active with our colleagues, particularly in the Federal Trade Commission in the United States, as well as with some other European countries, in setting up a transborder complaint-sharing mechanism.
For example, if I get a complaint about a New Zealand company operating in Canada, I can ask my New Zealand commissioner for help. That person doesn't have to, but it's a kind of way of structuring requests for assistance across the OECD members.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
That's great.
Moving onto something else, I was actually going to ask about the electronic commerce protection legislation, because you said that would increase your mandate around some of these issues. Can you say a little bit about what the change would be and where you would find the mandate? And do you need more funds? Is this an emerging area that requires more of your office?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
ECPA, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act, although it is basically an anti-spam legislation, which is long overdue, also has some clauses included in it that I have asked for and the government agrees would be.... I think there's wide agreement that they would help me become more efficient.
One is discretion to not have to take all the complaints, so that we could pick and choose and look at the more systemic issues. The other one is to be able to more fully share information, including, if necessary, details of complaints with other provinces and territories in Canada and internationally as may be needed for enforcement.
There is an envelope for the eventual enforcement of ECPA, which would be led by Industry Canada. We were here about three weeks ago on that. From memory, I think it's first four person-years and then six person-years and $200,000 recurring. If ECPA comes in, you will see that it's added on to our money that you will vote under the main estimates.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
On the cooperation with other international privacy protection agencies, that's in your budget. Is that an emerging area? Is more of that happening recently? In terms of the money you get to do your job, is that covered?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes. I think that's covered substantially now. We're not asking for any new funds. Of course, we try to make use of new technologies, and our staff e-mail, talk, and so on, so it doesn't necessarily take any more personal travel in that sense. It's more a mutual realization that we have to get together to send strong messages to global businesses.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
What will happen to the staff who were brought on board to deal with the backlog? Now that there's no backlog, I guess there's probably not as much work, specifically the kind of work that they were doing in the past. What will they be doing in the future?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes. Well, we didn't bring in extra staff over our complement to deal with the backlog. We used some former employees on contracts, some consultants, and some lawyers who had knowledge in the area. So there will be no job loss for permanent staff. Indeed, I feel very strongly about preventing job loss for permanent staff.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
You mentioned bolstering your regional presence. Can you expand on that a little? What's it going to look like in the various regions?
You specifically mentioned Toronto in terms of a satellite office. Can you tell us the percentage of businesses under PIPEDA that are based in Toronto? You mentioned that was why you had chosen to do this.
What will the regional structure look like and what are the changes?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
It has been delegated to Assistant Commissioner Denham. Could she answer that question, please?
Assistant Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Thank you.
We've looked at the percentages of respondents under our private sector legislation in the Greater Toronto Area and it's almost 65%, so on a really practical level, we think we should have some investigators and other staff on the ground in Toronto, and also to make connections with the stakeholder industry associations and, I guess, just to live and breathe the business, and understand the business in that area.
We also have an initiative going on in Saskatchewan where we have jurisdiction over businesses in that province. We're doing public education and compliance education in that province.
In British Columbia and Alberta, we have a lot of initiatives with our commissioner colleagues in those provinces because we share jurisdiction over the private sector. So we issue joint guidance to give more certainty to business and citizens in those provinces.
We also have a one-man band, as we call him, our outreach officer working in Atlantic Canada. He does a lot of public education and compliance education across the four Atlantic provinces.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Is that the only place where you have a specific staff person in a region?
Assistant Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
That's correct. We predict that there will be five to seven people in the Toronto office who will do investigations and outreach.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much for being here with us again today. It's always a pleasure to hear from you.
It's a particular pleasure today when I look at the wonderful report you've been able to give us on your accomplishments since the last main estimates. I think your department has definitely been working very diligently and has a lot of good accomplishments under its belt for this past year. I congratulate you and your other members on that.
My first question is on the Google issue. Of course, that is one of the things you've listed as one of your main accomplishments, and rightly so. I think you acted on that alongside other international heads of privacy agencies. How did you decide that it was your responsibility to be an international leader? Did you spearhead this? How did this come about?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
This particular initiative came about when I was with my international colleagues at an OECD meeting, which then coincided with discussions on the ongoing international conference arrangements. This international commissioners conference has been extant for some 25 years. Increasingly, all of the commissioners who are there are concerned about the same issues, because the same companies and the same types of technology affect all of our societies, which are western, European, Australian, New Zealand's, and so on. That's how it came about.
My office played a leading role for several reasons. First of all, we thought that a place to launch it would be at the conference for international privacy professionals, which takes place every year in Washington, D.C. We were obviously the closest people to Washington, and we were arguably more familiar with setting things up in Washington than the Italians, for example. We also function in two official languages, which is helpful for our colleagues in Spain, Italy, and France. There were considerations such as that.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
That's good.
Did you say that you meet at this international commissioners conference once a year?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Is there a benefit, do you think, in meeting more often? Do you have other mechanisms to trade information and keep informed on what others are doing? I know that you talked a bit about the transborder complaint-sharing mechanism. I would expect that it's probably one way in which you and your international colleagues share information.
Do you think there's a need to do it more than is happening now? Is Canada more aware or less aware of privacy issues than the other OECD countries? Or are we all about the same?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
There are a lot of questions there.
Somebody who has been very active, because these issues involve private sector privacy, is assistant commissioner Elizabeth Denham. She's been involved in something called the Galway initiative. Could I ask her to assist us?
Assistant Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I think our office has a lot of dance partners, internationally, when it comes to working on these issues that involve global companies. The Galway initiative is a joint initiative of U.S.-based multinationals, as well as European data protection commissioners and some academics. Again, we're looking at global privacy standards. How can we do this right and how can it make sense for companies so we don't have 27 different rules for transborder data flow? That's a bit of a think-tank initiative.
Another initiative, which is again through the OECD, is called the Global Privacy Enforcement Network. That group is now meeting a couple of times a year to get our heads around the consistent issues, the risks to privacy, and how we can have more of a global response.
There are quite a few initiatives going on. They're all aimed at looking at more of a standard approach to private sector privacy, something that's pragmatic and something that works for the way business operates and the new technology today.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you.
Commissioner, we've heard from other commissioners that employees are hard to recruit, that they're perhaps hard to retain, and that it's difficult to maintain staffing levels. But in your comments, you say that “thanks to stable and appropriate funding”, you've been able to “attract and retain the full complement”. So you have that, and you have reached out to younger people; you made that comment as well.
Could you comment a bit more on the workforce and the balance you're trying to put in place?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Some of the members of this committee will remember that we were in dire straits several years ago. We had the budget, but we would hire people and then they would leave. We didn't seem to be able to retain them and so on. Our director of human resources--who is here if you would like more details--put together a very comprehensive long-term recruitment plan.
We also looked at what a new generation of civil servants is looking for. Among other things, they're looking for interest in their job, trying to make a difference, and work-life balance. We try to stress these, not only in our recruitment, but in our personnel policies.
Over the last few years, as a whole generation moves to retirement, we have been able to recruit some very talented people. For the moment, they seem happy and not about to leave us.
