Thank you for your question.
The project has centred at Queen's University and we're looking at various trends in surveillance that have occurred over the last 10 or 15 years or so. There are several things that we would point to.
First, there is the fact that surveillance has become more mobile. It's become more general. It's not just about who you are; it's about where you are.
Surveillance has become more embedded in material objects. We don't necessarily know that we're being watched. Surveillance is also something that is not just done between big organizations and individuals. It's also something that happens from peer to peer.
There are a variety of trends that are occurring, and social networking and social media are central to all of those trends. That's why I have difficulty saying that social media and social networking are things that are out there, things that big corporations do. They are deeply embedded in all of our organizations.
With respect to privacy, it is true that our privacy protection rules need to be considered and updated in relation to social media, and particularly with respect to this issue. Our laws, such as the Privacy Act and PIPEDA, were developed with the notion of a distinction in mind between an organization and a subject, or between a controller of data and an individual. Now that distinction has broken down as social media sites are producing and selling data that is actually generated by users. It's that notion of user-generated data that really does challenge some of the existing principles within our privacy protection laws.
I want to say something in response to the previous question about enforcement powers.
The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has ombudsman powers. I am in favour of broader enforcement powers. They're certainly necessary in the light of these rapid changes in technology. More enforcement powers would create a greater certainty for consumers and indeed for businesses.
It would establish a clearer jurisprudence where the rules and the investigation reports would have a clearer legal standing than they perhaps do at the moment. It's also a little odd that some of our provincial commissioners, such as in Quebec, British Columbia, and Alberta, do in fact have enforcement powers under their respective privacy laws, when the Privacy Commissioner does not.