Evidence of meeting #113 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 know.
A video is available from Parliament.
11:05 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
Just to be clear, you want a list of any of the programs we used in Canada, basically for Canadian clients?
11:05 a.m.
Liberal
Michel Picard Liberal Montarville, QC
Not just the names, but I would like the codes and the program itself, to see how it works and how it operates. We're going to put some people on that to see how it works. Obviously, since they don't control what the client does with the final data, someone has to know how they work to see whether it was used for a specific, well-explained—
11:05 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Let's do it this way, which might be easier. If you agree to answer follow-up questions that we might have, in writing—
11:05 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
Yes.
—that's great. Then we'll submit a specific question to you in writing on that front.
11:10 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
When I leave, I'll write a response to you that has all the detail that I believe you're asking for. If you want more than that, then you can let me know. That will probably—
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Sure.
We have Ms. Vandenbeld, then Mr. Baylis, and we'll then close.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I just have a few quick questions.
First of all, one of the items in the documents found in the repository was a cryptocurrency called a Midas token. The minimum buy-in for this cryptocurrency is $10,000. Who was this done for?
11:10 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
We have a client, who came to us in British Columbia, who wanted to create a token. We did the work for them. They haven't launched it yet, though.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
What would they do with this kind of token? Where is the value?
11:10 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
Essentially, the idea is that they were trying to raise money for a project they were doing. Once the project gets up and going, people who contributed to the token then receive the benefits of that project. The company, or the organization, I should say, is working with their legal team to meet all of the British Columbia and federal security regulations. We haven't launched that yet.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Have you ever been paid in cryptocurrency for any of your services?
11:10 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
No. From a company, no. I've bought some poutine for a friend and they paid me in cryptocurrency, but our company has not been paid in cryptocurrency.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Do you know of any transfers of any amounts of data by anyone within SCL, or anyone with whom you might have a relationship, who was paid in cryptocurrency, by you or others?
11:10 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
Was I aware of any SCL transfers of data that...? I'm not aware of—
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Do you know of any data transfers that were paid for by cryptocurrency?
11:10 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
I'm not aware of anything that was paid for by cryptocurrency, with respect to us, or SCL, or any other company that we've worked with.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Okay.
On another line, you said that you had these lists that were provided to you by SCL. When you looked at those lists, did you see any patterns of demographic data, for instance racial patterns or any other patterns within those lists?
11:10 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
No. It was not evident to us. We don't always look at every entry in the lists we get. We get a sense of what's there. We'll look and see that they have given us some names, some of this, some of that, and what the columns are. When you get a list like that, if it's for advertising, mostly, it will just be their name, address, and email, or maybe even just a name and email.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
There was absolutely nothing that ever made you think that perhaps these lists were targeting, for instance, African Americans?
11:10 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
No. No. Indeed, the ads that we ran never suggested to us that was the case either.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Going back to Mr. Picard's question about Canadian clients, it seems that the model here is that SCL has multiple entities that will do work in other jurisdictions. You were doing work in the U.K. and the U.S. through Canada. Did you ever refer any Canadian clients to other SCL entities in other jurisdictions?