Information & Ethics Committee on Nov. 4th, 2010

[Jacob Glick]

We have a significant portion of the country mapped. The way to see it is by going to Google Maps and finding the little “peg man”, as we call him. I don't make up these names; I just repeat them at committee. You drag “peg man” over the map and all of the places that are covered in Street View will light up as blue.

But the answer is that we have mapped most communities throughout Canada, large and small, because we believe that everyone should have the opportunity of accessing next-generation maps.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

That is what you believe.

Otherwise, I presume there must be an update after a while.

In cities, the population changes, frontiers move one way or the other because of new construction, or neighbourhoods are remodelled. Did you make a decision that images will be valid for five years and then you will have to go back to these same places?

How does it work?

[Jacob Glick]

That's a great question. Thank you.

The short answer to your question is that there's no particular timeline, but with your indulgence, I have an interesting anecdote for you that provides a bit of colour to this.

During the last collection of data we photographed the city of Windsor, unfortunately, during their garbage strike. The city fathers were a little disappointed that the image they were presenting to the world was of a city with garbage piled up everywhere, and they actually wrote to Google and the correspondence was directed to me, specifically, saying, “Please, come back to Windsor. We want you to come back and photograph Windsor when there isn't garbage piled up everywhere.” So we in fact did do that. We came back to Windsor specifically to photograph it again.

I should also say that Toronto was partially photographed during their garbage strike. So if you go to Google Maps, you will see that Christie Pits Park had a whole bunch of garbage piled up in it. Toronto hasn't requested that we come back, but we did go back to Windsor because it was important to the people of Windsor that the Google cars return and a clean vision of the city be presented.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

If I am not mistaken, Toronto has a new mayor, and there will not be any trash cans in the streets ever. The matter is settled.

[Jacob Glick]

Ah, ah!

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

That being said, I am very much interested in one thing, and that is the technology you are using, and about which we have been talking for a while, to get the imagery and blur faces, licence plates on cars and street numbers on houses. Once you get all the material, it must be a painstaking work you have to do in order to sort out all this information

Technology is changing fast. Do you upgrade your software in order to protect people's security or at least their privacy? How do you do it? Are you choosing the newer technologies or do you keep the same blurring technique?

[Jacob Glick]

Again, it's an excellent question.

The facial recognition technology we use is literally the most sophisticated in the world. We developed it precisely so we could protect people's privacy.

It's funny, because you can go into Best Buy or Costco and get a camera that shows where all the faces are when you look in it, so you think this is trivial technology. This is again where I go on what I've been told; this is not my own area of expertise. As I understand it, that's about 90% accurate, and it is a trivial technical matter to have 90% accuracy in terms of figuring out where the faces are. From 90% to 95% is really hard, and 95%-plus is one of the hardest computer science challenges in the world. That's where we are in terms of the accuracy of facial recognition for the purposes of blurring.

Our engineers have published scientific papers on this. We were written up in The Economist recently as one of the best examples of machine learning and how machine learning can be used for important purposes like privacy protection. We are constantly innovating on technologies like this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Nadeau.

Mr. Albrecht, five minutes.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Glick, for being here today.

I really want to applaud you for your forthright testimony today. I think your admissions have been refreshing, understanding the fact it was an inadvertent error and that you're taking all necessary steps to correct the matter, from what I can tell.

I was surprised to hear about the number of Canadians who are using Street View. I think that indicates the value of Street View. You indicated that possibly it's especially valuable for those who can't read maps. I would suggest it's also valuable for anybody from Kitchener, because Kitchener has a series of streets that run in many different directions, as you would know, coming from that area. King Street runs east, west, north, and south, so it's difficult to give someone directions. So I appreciate your efforts there.

I'm disappointed that you don't have many of the rural areas mapped on Street View. I also represent three townships: Wellesley, Wilmot, and Woolwich. It's disappointing that I can't take a Sunday afternoon drive on Google and see the beautiful landscape in my riding. That's just a little bit of encouragement for you to get the rural areas up as well. Maybe there are initiatives to do the rural areas. My use of Street View has been very limited, so I'm not sure if many of the rural areas are covered. Are they?

[Jacob Glick]

Yes, rural areas across the country have been covered. I don't know about those areas in particular. As soon as I go home I'm going to see if--

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

We're going to get those done.

[Jacob Glick]

--New Dundee and Elora and Elmira and St. Jacobs and Fergus, all those communities, are up there.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I'll provide you with a Google map to get you around.

[Jacob Glick]

Yes.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

On a more serious note, you mentioned the training aspect of what you want to do to increase the level of confidence Canadians can have in privacy issues. The other concern the Privacy Commissioner raised to us was not only the training but the actual incorporation in the development stage of technology so that these issues are addressed beforehand in a proactive manner as opposed to a reactive manner. I'd like you to respond to that.

A second part to that question.... I know you have offices in Waterloo, which I understand are being moved to Kitchener, and you have a number of employees there. Are you finding it difficult to find people who have the technical qualifications you would need in an application like we're discussing today?

[Jacob Glick]

Thanks very much for the questions. I'll answer them in reverse order, if you don't mind, just for the committee's benefit.

We are looking for, literally, the top engineering minds in Canada, and we're attracting them because of what a quality place it is to work. Frankly, it is really hard for Google in general to find people, but as the Waterloo office goes on a global basis for Google, they've had particular success because of the top-quality education system we have and the top-quality engineering minds we have.

On the other question you've asked, about what the commissioner referred to as privacy by design--and this is a term coined by Ontario privacy commissioner Ann Cavoukian--we are very supportive of the principles that Commissioner Cavoukian has been evangelizing, which is to really bring the values of privacy deeply into an organization, from the start of the product design process.

If you think about it, we were talking a little bit before about how encryption is built into Gmail: that's privacy by design. Commissioner Cavoukian has said that previously. That's privacy by design because built right into the product is a key privacy protection that makes sure you and Google have a private communication, that no one else is getting in there.

So we want to continue to be able to do things like that. The education we're providing is I hope going to deepen those kinds of efforts within the company.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Albrecht.

Mr. Siksay for four minutes, and then we have to let the witness go.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Glick, you know I'm an enthusiastic supporter of Google and Google Street View, in particular. I'm a constant user of it, and I'm very happy with what Google did to meet the privacy concerns around the rollout and operation of Street View. I have no questions about that. I think that's been great.

I think that's why I'm so disappointed in what's happened in terms of the extra information that was collected during that process, that nobody knew about, and I still have some questions about that. We were talking about the deleting of the payload data. I want to know if you know of any impediment under U.S. law to the deletion of that information, the Canadian data.

[Jacob Glick]

I'm not a U.S. lawyer, so I wouldn't speculate.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Do you know if Google has identified any impediment to that?

[Jacob Glick]

I'm not aware of anything, but again, this is going to be part of the process that we go through as soon as I leave this room and call--

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

If you could let us know the answer to that, it would be very helpful.

Do you know if—

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

If you would get back to the committee with that information, that would--

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

That would be great.