Evidence of meeting #25 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 facebook.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Thank you very much, Ms. Bennett.
Ms. Freeman, you have seven minutes.
3:50 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Good day, Ms. Stoddart. I am very pleased to see you back here again. You are always welcome at our committee.
Ms. Stoddart, first, I want to congratulate you on the exceptional job that you have accomplished during your time as commissioner. You have been commissioner since 2003, and you have a seven-year term. Unless I'm mistaken, your mandate is set to end in December 2010.
3:50 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
It is November 30, I believe.
3:50 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
It will be November 30 in one month and a few days.
3:50 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
That is correct.
3:50 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Is there a chance that your term will be renewed?
3:50 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes, that is possible under the legislation.
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Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I said that I would be agreeable provided it was for a short period of time.
3:50 p.m.
Bloc
3:50 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
No, seven years is too long.
As some members of the committee will no doubt remember, when I came to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, there were major administrative problems. It took approximately three years to establish our reputation, have a budget and prove that we were a responsible agency. During that time, I was not able to tackle issues relating to privacy protection policy.
3:55 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
By analogy, you would like a three-year extension. We would like that very much because you have really done admirable work, particularly in recent months on two specific files: the one involving Google's Street View, and Facebook.
I think that you made recommendations on Street View, which had captured personal information using WiFi technology.
I see that your recommendations are of two kinds. First, you mention being able to delete information. You had given them a deadline of February 2011 to resolve the situation and delete data that they had collected. If they were unable to delete that information, it had to be kept more securely, with restricted access. Could you explain to me the second part of your recommendations? In that case, for example, would they be allowed to conserve data that had been collected illegally?
I want to mention that you have done admirable work with regard to Facebook and I want to congratulate you on your work and your leadership, both internationally and nationally. In all areas, you have really made headway on issues related to Facebook.
As soon as you resolve a problem, be it with regard to Facebook or Google, and people seem to be acting in good faith, a rule seems to exist: that of “not seen, not caught.” There is always something else that comes out. Now it's WiFi.
With regard to WiFi, they collected information illegally and you are saying that if they cannot delete it, it must be kept securely, or there must be restricted access to it. Under what circumstances are they unable to quite simply delete it?
3:55 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
That conditional clause was included because there are a number of cases currently before the courts involving Google. In fact, the attorneys general of approximately some 40 American states have filed suit under what is called electronic wiretap legislation. There is also another series of litigation cases. In general, when there is a suit, we retain the elements that may constitute evidence.
3:55 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
These are elements that may be used as evidence in a suit?
3:55 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
We recognize that we cannot order them to do things that they are unable to do under American legislation, since we are working with the American privacy authorities where possible. So we included this conditional clause that states that if 40 states are suing Google, the latter could keep the data and erase it after conclusion of the suit.
3:55 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Today, on the front page of the newspaper La Presse, we see that Facebook, for its part, was again acting more or less legally. The Globe and Mail also talked about this. There was an article that stated that Facebook was offering games such as FarmVille or other games, particularly poker games were people had to register. Based on that, these different sub-groups have a Facebook owner account ID code and they can track that person in order to exchange data.
What do you intend to do in this regard? Will you investigate it?
3:55 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
We have just concluded an investigation on Facebook, two weeks ago.
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Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
I think that Google and Facebook will keep you busy on a full-time basis.
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Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
That is, to some extent, the problem.
3:55 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
You understand the importance of working with other countries so that we are not alone or relatively alone. My colleague from the Spanish National Commission on Information and Freedom issued a press release yesterday that said he was laying criminal charges against Google WiFi for what had happened in Spain, where the system imposes heavy fines.
With regard to your question about Facebook, we will assess this with our technology experts, because it seems that the problem is not coming from Facebook as such, but from applications.
3:55 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
However, Facebook authorizes those applications. If I have correctly understood the two articles I read in the anglophone and francophone press, when people signed up for Facebook, there were various security standards that were respected. However, as time goes by, the security measures are less and less stringently applied. Facebook is the one that allows games like FarmVille and others on its site. Some laws will be broken and privacy will no longer be respected.
3:55 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
In fact, following our investigation on Facebook, which was concluded in September, part of the agreement specified that Facebook had to respect, under contract, the obligation of using only the personal information that people allowed to be provided, and of only using the personal information they needed for the purposes of the game. That began this summer.
There is still one thing we don't know. We learned about it like everyone else, yesterday, in the Wall Street Journal. There was that report, but there was no date on the Wall Street Journal investigation. We don't know whether this happened last year, before we concluded our work on Facebook. In fact, Facebook should be ensuring supervision, contractually requiring application developers to respect standards in keeping with Canadian legislation.
We don't have enough specific information on what is really happening, to whom and when. In fact, if it was six months ago, I would say that it was before Google undertook its internal reorganization.