Evidence of meeting #54 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was young.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
4:20 p.m.
Co-Executive Director, MediaSmarts
Oh, my gosh. In Australia, I believe it's hundreds of millions of dollars just for the digital literacy pillar. It's on top of their digital economy plan. You also have quality places created for children online as part of the strategy for children to learn and develop skills.
You were talking about really young children going online, and how on earth they can understand what they're being exposed to. That's where supporting parents and grandparents and adults who are in kids' lives becomes essential in helping people in the general public understand what constitutes a quality website for a child. We all understand that minimal information is needed for a child to participate in online environments. Therefore, understanding exactly what is needed in order to be able to say that a site is respectful of the children who are coming to it is part of that broader education piece, so that adults feel comfortable taking their children to these various web environments.
November 1st, 2012 / 4:20 p.m.
Director of Education, MediaSmarts
I'd like to add to that.
It's important to know as well that when young people go online, not only are they subject to the same privacy risks as adults, but they're actually subject to greater risks. We know from research done around the world that young people are tracked online more aggressively than adults.
For instance, a Wall Street Journal investigation found that on average, children's websites had 30% more tracking devices than adult websites. Similarly, a Federal Trade Commission study was done that looked at 400 mobile apps aimed at kids, and of course these, as we said, are on the devices most popular among younger children, things such as the iPhone or the iPad. They found that fewer than one in fifty actually said what personal information was being collected or how it was being used.
There is really aggressive tracking of kids. There is really aggressive commercial targeting of kids, more than adults are suffering. As you say, they have tremendous difficulties understanding what they are consenting to, if indeed it is possible for children to consent in those situations.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
John Carmichael Conservative Don Valley West, ON
When we talk about privacy legislation, and our Privacy Commissioner is well regarded for the work that's been accomplished to date, do you believe that stronger enforcement powers are needed to make sure companies respect privacy legislation? Should she be given more authority in her role to ensure that in the event a company transgresses, she would have the authority, some teeth in taking control of a situation, be it monetary or however it is weighed?
4:20 p.m.
Co-Executive Director, MediaSmarts
The Privacy Commissioner would be better positioned to specifically address whether she feels she has sufficient power to work with companies. Certainly having these standards, whether they are entrenched in legislation, or whether it is decided that these should be self-regulatory codes and guidelines, as has been done in other media, when these standards are put out, they do become the benchmark. They become the bar that companies are expected to reach one way or another.
4:25 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
I want to remind you that you should not touch the buttons on your microphone. We have experts who are here specifically to take care of that. They will do it for you.
Do you have something to add? Nothing?
4:25 p.m.
NDP
4:25 p.m.
Director of Education, MediaSmarts
I will add very briefly that whatever regulation or legislation takes place, it is really important that the education piece be there, to make sure young people are aware of the rights they have under legislation or regulation.
Research has shown that a large proportion of young people in the United States believes the law in that country protects their privacy more than it actually does. There is definitely an inaccurate sense among young people of how much they are protected.
We don't know whether that's true in Canada yet, but there's every reason to believe that it is.
4:25 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
Thank you.
We will now start a new five-minute round.
Monsieur Boulerice, you have the floor.
4:25 p.m.
NDP
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I also want to thank our guests for being with us. We do appreciate it.
I am a privileged witness because I can tell you in fact that a two-year toddler can navigate on an iPad and choose the videos he wants to watch on YouTube. He does. He knows he can play a video by touching the arrow icon and pause it with the two-bar icon. I understand this can be a cause for concern.
My first question is to Professor Bennett.
Dr. Bennett, you are working on a research project entitled "The New Transparency: Surveillance and Social Sorting." Can you tell us about your findings? How can you reconcile the social networks and social media environments with what I would call our reasonable expectations regarding respect for our privacy? What is your assessment of the present situation?
4:25 p.m.
Professor, University of Victoria
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.
4:30 p.m.
NDP
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Dr. Bennett, I have to interrupt you because I only have five minutes. I can now see why it may be risky to ask a university professor to give an assessment of the situation.
While preparing for today's meeting, I learned about new facial recognition technologies that can be used by people who design billboards for shopping centers or grocery stores. Using these technologies, it is possible to determine if the person looking at the billboard is young or old, male or female and so on, so the ad can be adapted to that person. According to the articles I read, it would even be possible to link this to information and pictures that may exist in this person's Facebook account. It would be possible to identify the person and all related information: children, income, address, etc.
Don't you think this is somewhat disturbing? I do. What do you think of the possibility of using facial recognition to link social media information to direct advertising?
4:30 p.m.
Professor, University of Victoria
It is a deep concern, as companies such as Facebook and Google are increasingly using facial recognition. The ability to identify somebody more precisely from simply taking a picture of them is something that should be of concern to all of us. It would encourage greater stalking, cyber-stalking and other stalking. More broadly, I think it raises another trend that I was alluding to, that the distinction between personal information and non-personal information is becoming increasingly difficult to identify.
We tend not to think about personal information anymore, or personally identifiable information, but whether it is personally identifiable information, and facial recognition, the ability to link up a face or an image to a real individual is an example of the increasing identifiability of all of us online.
4:30 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
Thank you very much.
We will now turn to Mr. Dreeshen for five minutes.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer, AB
Thank you to our witnesses.
I'm a former high school teacher. I taught school for 34 years.
My daughter actually teaches an educational technology course out of the University of Alberta, where she teaches online to teachers who will end up teaching in an online platform. The education industry will have to be aware of how these types of things are happening in the future, so it's how you do the training and everything else.
I noted, from your digital literacy discussion, that those types of things are needed for the students, but also at the educational level, at the teaching level, with the opportunity perhaps to go to teachers' conventions and those types of things. They're great opportunities for awareness, certainly.
I have a question about something you mentioned earlier. It's the concern that students realize they're being watched at school, and realize they're being watched at home, and therefore don't see their privacy as being something that they have any control over. Of course, if they get into sites on school time and in a school setting, you know what kind of difficulty would occur there, so they have to be able to protect themselves. I'm wondering if you have looked at how that can all be done.
As well, when you talk about digital literacy, I'm wondering if you're also explaining to them that this isn't a free service, and that the reason it's out there is for these industries to be able to gather information, which I think sometimes we forget.
I'm wondering if you could comment on that.
4:30 p.m.
Co-Executive Director, MediaSmarts
Sure. I'll start, and then I know Matthew will have lots to say.
I think one of the issues you mentioned is that training is so germane. Professional development training is almost going the way of the dodo bird. I believe at the Ottawa Board of Education there are currently two professional development days a year, and there are teachers who are teaching many different subjects, as well.
I also think our faculties of education are struggling to keep up with the whole change in education at all the levels you alluded to. We need to better train our teachers to teach through technology and teach about technology.
4:35 p.m.
Director of Education, MediaSmarts
Absolutely.
A study was done just last year with pre-service teachers, or teacher candidates, in Ontario. They said overwhelmingly that they did not feel they were being prepared to deal with the various digital issues they were going to face in the classroom. One of the ones they touched on was cyber-bullying, which is top of mind for many people. That too has a privacy dimension, because much of cyber-bullying does relate to unethical use of other people's privacy and personal information, their images, for instance, in many cases.
That's one of the reasons we have to address privacy. It's from a perspective of not only protecting your own personal information but also dealing with privacy in an ethical way. That relates to the corporate collection of privacy, because if we inculcate young people with the idea that privacy has an ethical dimension, they'll expect and indeed demand that their personal information be treated ethically by the spaces, the corporations, to whom they give it.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer, AB
There was also discussion about the amount of information that was gathered on young people. One of the things we heard was that perhaps there should be a way that, at a certain age or whatever, you could delete all of that type of data.
We're trying to talk about policies, and to look at different types of things, so I'm wondering if you could make a comment.