Evidence of meeting #30 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 product.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Okay, but you'll follow up and get back to the clerk of the committee on that point.
Canada Policy Counsel, Google Inc.
If I'm instructed by a parliamentary committee to do something, then I'm going to do it, I guess. I will consult with our external lawyers on this, because there could be all sorts of reasons why we may or may not be able to disclose it. But I understand the point you're making.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
It's certainly within your rights to consult whatever lawyers you want, but the order emanating from this committee is to provide us the answer in due course.
November 4th, 2010 / 4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thanks for being with us today, Mr. Glick. Certainly, we've had a fair amount of discussion about this.
There's one thing I want you to clarify before I ask you a question. You talked about three items you'd implemented in October or announced in October. One was the appointment of Dr. Whitten. One was “new safeguards with internal audits”. What was the third one? I missed that.
Canada Policy Counsel, Google Inc.
The third one was increased privacy training for all engineering staff. It's also for staff throughout the company, but in particular for engineers. If it's interesting for the committee, I've already had some preliminary discussions and my colleagues have had some preliminary discussions with some of the provincial privacy commissioners here in Canada who are interested in coming to Google and speaking to our engineers.
So back to the answer I provided to one of your colleagues, there isn't a particularly parochial view of privacy provided. A Canadian perspective of what “privacy” means gets provided and absorbed by our engineers globally. So we're working to make that a deep and meaningful experience that has a global impact.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you.
This week, a friend of mine who is a Gmail subscriber received a message from Google that started out by saying that Google rarely contacts Gmail users via e-mail but they were making an exception to let them know that they'd reached a settlement in a lawsuit in the United States, I believe, regarding Google Buzz. It went on to say the settlement acknowledged this, and blah, blah, blah...and it was a mandatory announcement sent to all Gmail users in the States as part of that legal settlement.
What's being done with those same people who are Canadian users? My understanding is that they were automatically subject to the Buzz application, and unless they physically went in and reset their privacy settings, their privacy information could have been in jeopardy of being viewed by other Google Buzz users as well. The person who approached me about this had gone in and physically reset their privacy settings, but what about people who didn't do that? Are they in jeopardy of having their information accessed by other Google Buzz users?
Conservative
Canada Policy Counsel, Google Inc.
I gave you a curt answer; I apologize.
I can go into a bit more detail about Google Buzz. The best way to describe it is kind of taking the functionality of Twitter, public updates—or private updates for that matter—and integrating that into Gmail. The way that was launched provided some very negative feedback from our users and resulted in lawsuits. By the way, we changed the launch procedure within 48 hours of the launch of the product, realizing we'd upset people. We didn't, though, disclose people's personal information without their consent. The product had a bad user experience, though, at launch, and we corrected that immediately because of an outcry from our users. This is similar to what I've described before, which is that we are attentive to what our users care about and we want them to like the products, and when they don't like a product we want to fix that.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
So a Canadian user, then, on Google Buzz, whether or not they went in and reset privacy settings, was at no risk of having privacy issues violated. Is that correct?
Canada Policy Counsel, Google Inc.
The short answer is no. The long answer is that it's going to take more time than we have to explain, but I'd be happy to meet with you to describe in more depth how Buzz works, what it is, and what the concern is.
But the short answer is no, Canadians' personal information is not at risk.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
So they don't need to be concerned about going in and resetting their privacy settings?
Canada Policy Counsel, Google Inc.
To be clear, if they don't want to use Google Buzz, then they have no reason to be signed up for it, and there's a way in their settings to just turn it off and get rid of it. So if they don't want to use Google Buzz, there's an easy way to get rid of it, and if—
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
I understood they're automatically subject to the Buzz application, whether they signed up for it or not, that if they had a Gmail account, they were automatically subject to it. That is what I was told.
Canada Policy Counsel, Google Inc.
That's not correct. What happened was that every Gmail user was given the opportunity to join this additional service, which was built into Gmail, but it was not obligatory that people sign up for it.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
So it was not a reverse registration, if you want to call it that, or a reverse sign-up, where you were automatically signed up unless you physically did not sign up?
Canada Policy Counsel, Google Inc.
That's right.
There were a number of interstitials that users had to go through in order to get access to Google Buzz and start using it. But different users didn't like that sign-up process, in any event—which we changed.
Liberal
Bloc
Richard Nadeau Bloc Gatineau, QC
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Glick, in Canada, how extensive is the coverage by street level imaging?