Information & Ethics Committee on April 1st, 2014

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you.

I just had an opportunity to go through your testimony.

Are there any restrictions around other organizations asking to use the person's SIN for a way to identify them as a customer or as another...? An outside government agency may use someone's SIN as part of identification purposes for you as a customer, or for another purpose. It's outside of an employer-government relation. It's an outside organization using the SIN. Are there any restrictions on any companies doing that?

[Louis Beauséjour]

There is the entity that can use the SIN as an identifier through, I think, the Treasury Board Secretariat, and there are legal limitations as to who can ask and who we can ask to provide the SIN. It's the “don't” part that we advise the client on; don't give your SIN to people who ask for it except if they can legally do so and propose any other means to confirm your identity. People can provide viable licences or there are other kinds of means that they can use. But they should not provide the SIN except if the entity that requires the SIN can legally do so.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Mr. Beauséjour.

Thank you, Scott.

Next, the NDP are going to divide their time, and we have only time for their five-minute round, and then one more Conservative five-minute round. Then we're going to give some time to change the witness panels, because our next presentation has two 10-minute presentations and it's a shortened period.

Mathieu, you wanted to begin?

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

To start, I would like to present the following Notice of Motion:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(h)(iv), the committee invite the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to discuss her findings in the investigation into the loss of a hard drive at Employment and Social Development Canada.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

So you're just serving notice of an intent.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Yes.

I will now give the floor to my colleague, Mr. Giguère.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Good morning, Mr. Beauséjour.

In your document, you say that the department does not recommend using the social insurance card. However, I looked at my social insurance card, and on the back, it says “Sign your card. Keep it with you.“ Now, you are saying that you don't recommend that people keep it with them. And yet, when you issue this card, you clearly ask them to do so. I see a serious contradiction here.

[Louis Beauséjour]

Your card was probably issued a number of years ago, because the new cards say on the back not to keep it with you. It simply shows that, over the years, we realized that we had to change our social insurance number protection practices, given the risk of identity theft when people kept it with them.

I cannot tell you how long ago the cards were changed. Recently, the 50^th anniversary of the social insurance number was celebrated. As of this year, the social insurance number has existed for 50 years.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

This is a question that is exactly in the same vein as that of my colleague.

I really enjoy your rhetoric, but we are currently proceeding with a supposedly democratic reform which will mean that voters are not allowed to show up with their voter card, but are being asked to show up with their social insurance card so that they can vote.

On the one hand, the Minister of State for Democratic Reform tells us not to use the voter card anymore, but to use the social insurance card instead. On the other hand, you have just informed us that this card will no longer exist. It would be worthwhile for departments to talk to each other from time to time.

It is impossible to use a card for voter identification if it is a going to be phased out soon. There is a problem here.

[Louis Beauséjour]

Since the card will no longer exist, this becomes an issue. We will have to follow up on that. I do not know what happened.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

You say there is always a risk. That is obviously the case. When a wallet is lost, the social insurance card and other relevant information is also lost, especially the information on a driver's licence. However, 500 000 wallets are not stolen every year in Canada.

As for your department, in one fell swoop, the private information of 500,000 individuals was lost. The scale is not the same. On this front, the Information and Privacy Commissioner indicated that, among all federal departments, only 4.4 % of incidents involving lost information were reported to her.

Don't you think that your priority should be to better secure your internal data transmission networks, rather than tell Canadian citizens to be careful of pickpockets?

I do not believe that 500,000 wallets are stolen every year in Canada. The main source of danger is not that citizens loose their wallets, but that their identity could be stolen. The problem with your department is that it is not always a good custodian of the information that it maintains and protects.

[Louis Beauséjour]

As I just mentioned, protecting the private information entrusted to us is our main concern through the entire department. We are constantly trying to improve.

Following the events that you mentioned, we implemented different protection reinforcement measures and we are constantly looking for new ways to reduce the risks associated with the losts of private information.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Mr. Beauséjour.

Thank you, Mr. Giguère.

That concludes your time, sadly.

Next, for the Conservatives, we have Jacques Gourde.

This will be our final round of questioning.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would also like to thank Mr. Beauséjour for the information he is provided to us today.

Personally, I really liked the social insurance card. It gave me a link with the Government of Canada. I asked for my card when I was 16 years old, and I remember that I received it with pride. For me, the card was also a reminder.

Soon, the department will send us our social insurance numbers on a piece of paper. Individuals, especially young people, have a tendency to put letters with their things and to loose them easily.

The department must expect that it will receive many calls to receive that number again. How are you going to be able to offer this service to Canada's entire population?

[Louis Beauséjour]

When the social insurance number is issued, we will ask the client to quickly memorize his or her number and to keep the letter that we have sent in a safe place so that he or she can refer to it as needed.

Over the next few months, we will evaluate the situation in order to measure the effects of withdrawing the social insurance card. We don't believe that the effects will be very serious, but we will conduct a very close follow-up with those who communicate regularly with us to obtain their social insurance number repeatedly.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

When are you going to stop issuing the social insurance card?

[Louis Beauséjour]

We stopped issuing social insurance cards last Monday. We don't yet know what effect this will have on the network, but we are monitoring the situation.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

I can predict that you are going to have huge problems because currently in Canada, people move more often than they used to. Often, during a move, papers get lost. Young people also move frequently.

I think that you have unintentionally created a monster. I don't want to discourage you. I think members' offices will have more work to do, because people are going to call us to find out what to do to get a new social insurance number. I think that you will have to implement an emergency team because, in a few months, this is going to start.

[Louis Beauséjour]

I have made a note of it. As I said, we are going to monitor the effect that this will have on the network. I would imagine that at that time, if there are measures to be taken, we will look at which ones are appropriate.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

You are asking people to memorize their number. At a certain age, it becomes more difficult to remember numbers. Not everybody can easily memorize numbers.

I think that what you are saying is a relatively weak argument to explain this decision.

[Louis Beauséjour]

As I said, the individual will be able to refer to the document they have at home. It is clear that this will be an important document that must be kept in a safe place.

The same recommendation is made for the card or the document. It's always been recommended over the last few years not to carry the social insurance card. Therefore, be it the card or the letter, it's exactly the same thing: it must be kept in a safe place.

People have to ensure that they can find it again. It's clear that there is a risk, but this risk has existed for many years. For years, it's been recommended that people not carry their social insurance card with them. Hopefully, they have been following this recommendation, because it puts their identity at risk.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Have you calculated the number of times that a Canadian has to write their social insurance number on a form throughout a given year?

[Louis Beauséjour]

No, I don't know how many times they have to do it. Clearly, there are a certain number of programs that require it. Of course, every time someone finds a new job and has a new employer, they have to provide their social insurance number.

Also, for all federal government programs that offer benefits, the individual must provide their social insurance number. Everything hinges on where the individual might be in their life cycle. Some have the same job for many years and rarely have to give out their social insurance number, whereas others have to do it frequently.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Mr. Gourde. That concludes your time. That's perfect.

Thank you very much, Mr. Beauséjour and Mr. Frelich, for joining us today. It's been very helpful.

We're now going to suspend the meeting briefly while we get a new panel of witnesses. I'd like to suggest that committee members take this opportunity to get themselves some lunch. We'll reconvene in about five minutes.