Evidence of meeting #148 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 google.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
You can't do it in real time.
Let's say I come along. You have your automated system. Here's the ad. It's no good, but you don't know that because you can't do it in real time, right? It's up on your page or your Google platform for however time it takes you.... You can't do it in 24 hours, so in how long can you do it...? Two days? Give me a number.
4:45 p.m.
Public Policy and Government Relations Counsel, Google Canada
Well, like I said, it would get tagged and then reviewed—
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
I know, but how long would it take for you to identify it? You couldn't make the 24 hours, right? I got that. In how long could you have done it...? A week? A day? Two days?
4:45 p.m.
Public Policy and Government Relations Counsel, Google Canada
Again, I couldn't provide you with specific time frames.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Let's say 48 hours. Can we say that just for argument's sake?
I come along. Here's my ad—boom. I have a system to identify it. It takes 48 hours, though, right? It's up on your system for 48 hours before you go, “Oh my gosh, this ad has taken us 48 hours to identify and now we have to take it down.” Is that what's going to happen?
4:45 p.m.
Public Policy and Government Relations Counsel, Google Canada
As I said, we will have both the automated systems and our ads enforcement team that will identify it and—
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
4:45 p.m.
Public Policy and Government Relations Counsel, Google Canada
—that will basically be applying—
4:45 p.m.
Public Policy and Government Relations Counsel, Google Canada
As fast as we can manage.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
4:45 p.m.
Public Policy and Government Relations Counsel, Google Canada
There's a difference between being able to identify and remove the ad versus being able to update an ad registry.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Okay. I want to make sure I understand. There's a difference between being able to identify it and remove it within 24 hours, no problem.... I have an automated system to identify it and remove it, and I have automated system people. Say I've identified it and removed it—whew, that was close. Identifying it and removing it in 24 hours, that I can do, but identifying it and putting it on a registry, like a big database—it's not even that big, I'd imagine, by your standards—that I can't do. Is that what I understand?
4:45 p.m.
Public Policy and Government Relations Counsel, Google Canada
Due to other aspects of the complexities with respect to the registry requirements, that is why we couldn't actually deploy. As I said, we do this in other jurisdictions, right?
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Yes, I'm sure you do.
Let's be clear on what you're saying. You can identify it and block it within 24 hours, using a combination of software and people.
You can identify and block it within 24 hours. Is that correct?
4:45 p.m.
Public Policy and Government Relations Counsel, Google Canada
As I said, we will be enforcing very vigorously and with respect to detecting and removal.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
You said that you have the systems. Your engineers did that.
Say I've identified it and blocked it within 24 hours. Once you've identified it, whatever programming...because I have to do some programming to say, “Poof, take it down within 24 hours.” I imagine you can do it instantaneously or is it going to be up for 24 hours? I don't even know. How long is it going to be up for? That's my question to you.
4:45 p.m.
Public Policy and Government Relations Counsel, Google Canada
As we do with all classes of advertising, we'll basically be trying to remove it immediately upon detection.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
4:45 p.m.
Public Policy and Government Relations Counsel, Google Canada
Immediately upon detection.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Okay. So you can catch it and immediately bring it down, but you can't catch it and within 24 hours you have to program it and move it all the way into this database? Now, that's asking too much, frankly; your programmers can't do that, but they can sure as heck program it, find it, get a backup team and get it down instantaneously. That ad is not getting up there. Say I know the ad, and I found it instantaneously, but you want me to program a database? I mean, we're just Google....
How many billions of hours do you get watched a day, did you say? Was it 500? What was your number?
4:45 p.m.
Public Policy and Government Relations Counsel, Google Canada
On YouTube, there are a billion hours of content watched every day.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
A day? So you have a pretty big database. Can I assume that?
4:45 p.m.
Public Policy and Government Relations Counsel, Google Canada
There are a multitude of databases, but again—
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
For a little database for a bunch of legal advertisements to put on...I can't imagine that database is one-tenth of one-tenth of one-tenth of your hardware/software net, but your engineers can't program...? They can do everything. They can catch it and identify it instantaneously, but they just can't put it in a database because that's too complicated? Isn't one of the expertises of Google database management? Am I off here?