Thank you very much. It's nice to see you again.
Mr. Calkins is getting close to his maximum safe exposure to Warren Everson this week. You want to be cautious about that.
That's a really big mouthful of a question, as you know. I think society will use a defence in depth with regard to privacy. That defence will include a proper understanding of what the consent is. I certainly support the committee in the tone of your questions concerning frustration about consent being hard to follow and hard to understand. I don't suppose the suppliers of the service necessarily take much joy in it either.
I think the caution of the consumer can't be ignored. My children are much more concerned about Internet privacy than I am, because they have been lectured to about it so much and can cite off all the rules that exist for the social media they're employing. I don't know whether they represent any standard or not, but they are certainly not unconscious of the issue; they are suspicious.
Madam Borg started with asking whether there is a lack of trust. There is a lack of trust, and it's probably a darned healthy thing that it exists there.
We have seen in the last couple of years some pretty significant changes to privacy in the big offerings. Facebook has upgraded its privacy standards, and that's an ongoing debate. You can hardly pick up a newspaper without seeing discussion about it. I note that Google handles people who identify themselves as young consumers differently, as to how much information is available in their social chat services. I became aware not long ago of a service called Hangout, where people can go and hang out. When a stranger enters that enclave, everyone is notified, and if the stranger does not properly identify, the site closes, so they would have to reassemble it. There are all kinds of technical security and privacy services that have been invented by the technical side of the business, conscious of consumer concern.
I'm just going to say one more thing. As you proceed in your hearings, obviously you're going to want to know exactly what the law currently makes illegal and how often it has been employed by people. It's my contention that the law is not bad in Canada. Probably public awareness is quite low as to exactly what recourse exists.