Thank you.
Mr. Chair, honourable members of the committee, it's our privilege to be here today to discuss the security and privacy of data and information when delivering digital government services.
The Information Technology Association of Canada, also known as ITAC, represents some 340 member companies, from the very largest multinationals to the smallest SMEs. We are the leading voice of Canada's ICT industry, an industry that includes some 37,000 companies, most of which are small and medium-sized enterprises. The industry generates over 1.5 million jobs, contributes more than $77 billion annually to the GDP, and invests over $4 billion in annual R and D, which is the largest private sector industry contribution to the nation's R and D.
ITAC is appearing before you today in support of its efforts for the development of a robust, competitive, sustainable digital economy and digital government in Canada. In recent years, ITAC has partnered with the federal government in various fora to help modernize the government's IT procurement processes and enhance the government's ability to successfully leverage IT and ICT to improve the delivery of public services.
The committee's study comes at an opportune time. The Government of Canada, as was pointed out by some of your witnesses earlier this week, has an ambitious vision for transforming and providing digital services to Canadians. Addressing security and privacy risks is a prerequisite of this transformation. Canadians expect and deserve digital government services that provide effective security and privacy.
The key question for the committee is how the Government of Canada can both achieve its vision for digital service delivery while also protecting security and privacy. It is ITAC's view that by adopting a balanced approach and by adjusting elements of its current data classification system and security framework, these two objectives are both compatible and interdependent.
I'll now ask Michael Fekete, chair of ITAC's legal committee, and counsel for Microsoft at Osler, to speak.