Information & Ethics Committee on Nov. 1st, 2012

[Jane Tallim]

Certainly.

The education piece fits squarely into that. When you're looking at data retention, you're looking at corporate responsibility, being amenable to removing images and data at a certain point.

The education piece is really important, though, especially with youth. You could have a company that is very respectful of this, that doesn't retain profiles after a certain time period after they're closed. However, if a young person, or anyone, has been indiscreet in over-sharing photos, texts, or anything like that, these images and texts have a life of their own beyond the courtesy of the company where those were posted.

It's a double issue there. The education piece is central in just thinking about what you post online, especially for youth.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you, Mr. Dreeshen. Unfortunately, your time is up.

Mrs. Sims, please. You have five minutes.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here.

I'm glad to be here talking about one of my favourite topics, digital literacy, being a Luddite when it comes to this and having grandchildren who know far more than I do about all of it.

This is a topic that's close to my heart as a teacher. As you may know, I was on the Canadian Teachers' Federation executive for a number of years and on their board of directors. This issue has been a great concern to the teaching profession right across the country. They have been calling on governments at all levels to do more in this area, both in the teacher training aspect of it, but also in providing resources, by way of curriculum and tools that can be used in the schools, as well as by doing some pre-school work with parents. We know how challenging this can be.

It's always great to have somebody here from my home province, and from Victoria, one of my favourite cities.

My first question is for Matthew and Jane; either of you can answer it.

How has the elimination of the community access program impacted access to digital literacy training in Canada?

I'm specifically interested in a comment you made in which you talked about Australia and the U.K. taking this issue a little more seriously than we do. Could you explain what drove that comment from you? Are we providing enough resources as a federal government to ensure that we have the kind of literacy we need for our youth?

[Jane Tallim]

Thank you for your question.

I'll bring it even closer to home. An initiative in the United States is a digital literacy corps of young people who are trained to go out into the community and provide training to members of communities in various cities across the country.

Looking at these and other initiatives, we found it sad that we have an excellent system set up that is very well respected, that is doing good work, that is reaching those people who might be more difficult to reach, and that we denied it funding. It's sad because at the end of the day we're going to have to go back and reinvent the wheel, and we'll probably come up with another CAP system, when we actually have systems that are invested in communities and are well respected and are doing good work in communities.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Absolutely I'm hearing from you that you're looking to parliamentarians, those of us around this table and in the House, to ensure that we provide adequate funding so that we do not fall behind other countries that are doing such a great job in this area.

[Jane Tallim]

Yes.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

As you said, it's a very complex matter. It's multi-faceted, and there are no easy answers. Yet we have to start somewhere, and the community access program, I know, was certainly one stepping stone.

Thank you very much for that clarification.

My next question is for you, Colin. In one of your recent presentations on the geopolitics of personal data and the governance of privacy, you have undertaken substantial research into privacy issues, not just domestically but internationally.

In your presentation you discuss trends in surveillance practices. Could you elaborate on some of those trends? I'm trying to get a sense of some of them.

Let me also mention that, as you know, at our border we're moving more towards biometric data collection as well. What do you see as some of the concerns in that area?

[Dr. Colin Bennett]

I will continue on with the trends. The collection of biometrics at the border is something which the Privacy Commissioner has expressed a great deal of concern about.

It depends a bit on what you mean by a biometric. That's a word that's not used consistently, but it speaks to my broader points. The nature of information is changing and the ability to monitor people is changing as a result of changes in the way we think about identifying people.

Perhaps I could add something historically to emphasize my point.

There was a time, maybe 30 or 40 years ago, when we knew when information was being captured about us because we filled out a form. We were asked for a certain amount of information and we filled our a census form or an application form, or something like that. Now, increasingly, we do not know when that is happening. Furthermore, we don't necessarily know the nature of the information itself. We don't know how we are being identified. One of the larger trends, in addition to those that I mentioned earlier, is that we don't know, as individuals, how organizations are actually identifying us. We don't know how that happens online, and we certainly don't know how it's happening with respect to biometrics. Yet our laws tend to be based on a fairly dated notion of what personal information is and is not, and it's creating challenges for the Privacy Commissioner here and for her colleagues internationally.

I hope that h as addressed part of your question, at any rate.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Mrs. Sims, unfortunately, your time has expired. I would have loved to hear more of this but I have to interrupt you because we must go to the next point on our agenda.

I wish to thank our distinguished guests who have taken the time to come today to explain their points of view to the committee.

As we did at our last meeting, we will have to update the witness list. Since the list is not public, we have to sit in camera to update it.

Once more, thank you very much.

Members, we will resume in a few minutes.

[Proceedings continue in camera.]