Evidence of meeting #11 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was year.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:05 a.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Okay.
Could you touch on the increase of $125,000 at the end of the term transferred to CRTC. Elaborate a bit on that, just so I'm clear.
9:05 a.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
When CASL was adopted, we reached an agreement with the CRTC to fund the equivalent of one person, one employee, for intelligence and analysis leading to certain enforcement activities under CASL. After implementation of this new legislation, we thought that this resource should be used internally, as opposed to within the CRTC, so we recuperated the equivalent of $125,000.
9:05 a.m.
Conservative
May 3rd, 2016 / 9:05 a.m.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Thank you for coming back to the committee.
We've talked a bit about the backlog already, so I don't want to belabour it. You mentioned that complaints have been on the increase. Do you anticipate that the number of complaints will continue to increase? What do you think this would mean for the percentage of your budget allocated to investigation?
9:05 a.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
If you look at the complaints made over the past five years under the Privacy Act, the public sector law, the number has quadrupled. This includes two phenomena for which we have generic approaches: individuals who make a large number of complaints, and issues that result in a large number of complaints made by several individuals.
If you discount these two factors, which we manage differently, the increase is still sizable, around 40% to 50% over the past five years. The workload has increased significantly. We've dealt with it, in part, through reallocation from other sectors and preventive activities. We've also undertaken a rigorous examination of our procedures. We have used more early resolution, fewer cases with full complaints but still leading to a good resolution for complainants. We're constantly looking at our processes.
We will continue to do that with or without new funding. We've been able to double production in the past five years, so there may be some productivity gains. At some point, however, I think we're going to hit a wall.
9:10 a.m.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
How many of the current complaints are for the public sector and how many are for the private sector? What's the breakdown?
9:10 a.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
There are more complaints for the public sector law than for the private sector. For the public sector, it's over 1,000 per year; for the private sector, it's in the hundreds per year.
9:10 a.m.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
My understanding is that with Bill S-4 you'll be anticipating an increase in the number of investigations relating to the private sector. Is that right?
9:10 a.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
9:10 a.m.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Can you give us a concrete example of complaints that aren't being addressed in a timely fashion? What would be an example of the kinds of complaints sitting in the backlog right now? What kinds of issues are not being addressed because you don't have adequate resources?
9:10 a.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
The complaints that tend to take longer are obviously the most complex ones, and that too is related to technological change. In the public sector, a trend in the past few years has been that with technology it's easier for departments to share information, and they manage information in a horizontal way now, as opposed to in a silo.
That leads to questions around whether the information is being shared by departments appropriately, legally under the privacy legislation, and so on and so forth. You see that in national security, but also in border management or in other social programs. Information is shared more and more.
It is these kinds of issues that take longer to investigate, as opposed to the more transactional complaints, where an individual wants access to his or her file in a given department. That, we can do fairly quickly, but the more complex, systemic types of investigations take longer.
9:10 a.m.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
If you had the resources and time to be able to pursue the project of developing industry codes of practice, what could Canadians expect to see as a kind of tangible benefit from that in their everyday lives? What could they hope to gain by having those codes in place?
9:10 a.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I would start with the statistic I gave you, which is that 90% of Canadians are very concerned about their privacy protection, and the majority of Canadians do not know what their rights are. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that privacy policies of companies, as all of us have had the occasion to read or not read, are long, complex, and not very informative. What is a consumer to do about reading this kind of information? People do not understand what happens to their information; they click without knowing what happens to their information.
With a code of practice in a given sector, in the insurance sector, say, or the banking sector, the tangible impact would be that consumers as a class would be better informed in a given sector about what generally happens to their information in the industry in question. It would address directly the gap in knowledge of consumers, which perhaps might lead to greater trust by consumers in the industry in question.
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blaine Calkins
I want to get one bit of clarification before I move to Mr. Bratina, if that's okay.
Mr. Therrien, I believe you responded to Mr. Blaikie's question about where the bulk of your work lies. I believe that in your original answer you said that more of your work lies with the private sector, not the public sector, but when you gave us the numbers, it seemed to be that the public sector was larger and was more work than the private sector.
9:15 a.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
In numbers, there are many more investigations in the public sector than in the private sector. The actual numbers in the recent year were 1,700 complaints under the Privacy Act in the public sector, and 309 under PIPEDA in the private sector.
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
9:15 a.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
9:15 a.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
No. I'm sorry for the confusion. There are more complaints under the public sector. Therefore, there are more investigations in the public sector.
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blaine Calkins
Are the growth and demand coming more from the private sector or from the public sector?
9:15 a.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
In both. It's actually both.
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
9:15 a.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
9:15 a.m.
Conservative