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.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes, but the whole case goes to the parties involved. So if a complaint is made, then, a report is sent out to the complainant and to the respondent.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Okay. I guess we'll leave that. And at least the summaries are available on your website...?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
That is correct.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Thank you.
If I may, just as the last question on it, on the information that's reported to either a complainant or the person or party against whom that complaint was made, are they held to any privacy standard or confidentiality standard?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I don't think so, Mr. Chairman. I think that certainly the complainants may choose to make available the information that is in their report--if they so choose. We can't in a way that would identify the complainant, but the complainant may. I believe that if the federal government were a respondent, it would still be bound by its duty to keep personal information confidential.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Good morning, Ms. Stoddart, Ms. Bernier and Ms. Denham. Thank you for being here this morning.
I want to start by congratulating you and your team, Ms. Stoddart. I am very pleased with the job you have done. On Saturday, I was reading the paper and learned that you were leading the way in terms of the social networking site Google Buzz, as you did with Facebook. Given the tools at your disposal, the manner in which you work, as well as your relationships with privacy commissioners around the world, whether in New Zealand, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Ireland or Germany, I would say you are doing a fine job and have an outstanding team.
My question has to do with your priority issues this year. You identified four, which you mentioned earlier: information technologies, national security, the integrity and protection of people's identity and genetic technologies. Clearly, given the vast number of areas in your field of expertise—and given all the new technologies—you chose four out of a slew of others, I would imagine.
What criteria did you base your choices on?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Those choices were determined two or three years ago, I believe. We consulted with staff members whose job it was to stay abreast of privacy developments. We chose these four priorities because, strategically speaking, we felt they were the areas most likely to affect the lives and privacy of Canadians in the years ahead.
I will ask Assistant Privacy Commissioner Bernier to elaborate further. In fact, it is easy to choose the areas, but much harder to stay on top of them, to continue to make choices and to accomplish objectives.
Chantal Bernier Assistant Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
What we did was set up four task forces to really focus our efforts on the four priorities, which, as the commissioner said, were chosen for their relevance and because they represent the biggest risks to privacy today.
The national security task force worked hard and made significant strides in a number of areas, in terms of expanding our knowledge and understanding of the issues, and forging stronger ties with national security and law enforcement agencies to ensure we really understood everything involved. Internally, we also carried out more in-depth analyses. We focused on analyses addressing all aspects of national security, including the FINTRAC audit. You will recall that the audit was published recently. Our analysis of former Bills C-46 and C-47 is another example.
We organized workshops to discuss the issues surrounding genetic technologies. It is an area where a lot is still unknown. We did so of our own accord and in cooperation with Genome Canada. In terms of information technology, there again, we strengthened our capacity by engaging experts and keeping a very close eye on all technological developments.
Lastly, in terms of identity integrity, most of our focus was on public education and youth outreach, in order to ensure that Canadians are able to protect themselves against identity theft.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
If I understand correctly, work on your priority issues is already under way. The committees are working very well, and they will produce findings concerning the four priority issues. Do you plan to submit a final report? What do you plan to do exactly?
Assistant Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Each task force has a matrix of success factors, so deliverables. It depends on the issue. In genetics, for example, the workshops that we organized and contributed to will allow us to review one of our outdated documents in order to take stock of the latest developments in genetics and privacy. The same goes for security.
Assistant Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Our participation—
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Obviously, you are talking about three years. Things happen so quickly, you have to keep up-to-date.
Assistant Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Indeed.
We recently met with the Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada, which is exploring a whole new realm of possibilities in terms of protecting genetic information. We are part of that. I represent the commission on the National DNA Data Bank Advisory Committee, where all kinds of methods for implementing the legislation, using DNA, are posing challenges to privacy.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Those are very worthwhile issues.
You work with the department responsible for national security. Can you tell us what specific areas you are working on right now?
Assistant Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
We worked with department staff to gain a deeper understanding of the context. It is critical that we understand the challenges and issues they face, but we challenge them, as well.
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Yes, can you describe the challenges? When I was on the justice committee, I had the opportunity to ask people questions, and it was quite difficult to get information out of them. Oh, oh!
Assistant Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes. For instance, the first step in our analysis of former Bills C-46 and C-47 was to sit down with them and ask them to justify the powers conferred to them under the bills. So numerous meetings were held, experts who were no longer necessarily at the agencies—so who had a certain perspective—performed an analysis and people in academia were consulted.
We formed our own opinion, we did our own analysis of the bill, and we wrote to the chair of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. And we sent a copy of that letter to the chair of your committee. In the letter, we raised some real questions about the two bills.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
What kind of cooperation did you get from national security....
Okay, then.
Liberal
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for being here again, Commissioner, with your colleagues.
Commissioner, I, too, want to congratulate you on the initiative around the Google Buzz issue. Is that kind of international cooperation a personal initiative that you take or is there an international body of other privacy protection officers? How does something like that come about?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Thank you for that question, because it's important to situate what happened in the context.
There's an international privacy commissioners' conference. That has existed for about 25 years now. Increasingly within that conference we're coming to the realization that the issue is common action, common standards, and common enforcement goals, particularly when faced with the rise of global business, which has been dramatic in the last 10 years, and then the rise of the new social online media, which have been around for only two or three years.
We've done quite a few things over the years with this group. Last year, we were working on global standards to try to bring standards across different countries closer together, because global business says that it doesn't know what the standard is: that it's this in one country, while the procedures are that in another country. So we're trying to facilitate the understanding of privacy.
It's within that context, and more particularly within the context of the work at the OECD, where Canada, through the presence of the delegation led by Industry Canada, plays a significant role in OECD privacy and security workshops. Some of us were there in Paris on that occasion, and that's when the idea of a common position on this particular issue arose.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Is the OECD the key international body that looks at these possibilities of cooperation around international enforcement issues?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I'd say yes, it is the most formally constituted body. The commissioners don't have a secretariat, and the conference changes from one year to the other. In fact, the OECD was the organization that defined the information principles in 1981. That's the basis, I think, not only for our Privacy Act, but also for PIPEDA and many other countries' standards.