Evidence of meeting #153 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 facebook.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
I was worried about that, so I asked, “What happens, then, if someone puts up an ad that they're not allowed to?” He said not to worry about that, and do you know why? He said they'll find it instantaneously; they can pick it off.
I asked, “How do you do that?” and he said they have this artificial intelligence and they have a team of people.
Now it says you can find the ad instantaneously, but our law says once you have the ad, you have to put it up. You have 24 hours to put it in a database. That, you can't do.
Can you explain that to me? How is it possible that you have all this technology, you can identify any ad from any platform instantaneously, but you can't have your programmers put it up in 24 hours on a database, and it will take more than six months to do so?
Global Director, Information Policy, Google LLC
If I understand the question correctly, it is simpler to take a more conservative approach, an approach that is more broadly restrictive than one that says, yes, we're going to validate that this is an election ad operating under the law, and so on and so forth.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
You're already making a decision. You're validating it because you're blocking it. He told me that. You're doing that.
Global Director, Information Policy, Google LLC
Yes, we may be blocking it for a variety of reasons if it violates our policies.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
No, not your policies; he said “political ads”. My question was very specific.
You can stop it, but you can't put it on a database. I want to understand the difference.
Global Director, Information Policy, Google LLC
There is a big difference between saying we're going to take, in general, a conservative approach here and saying, on the other hand, “I'm going to say clearly this is a legitimate election ad”, taking that further step.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Once you see that it's an ad, you're not letting it go up. You're blocking it. You can instantaneously decide it's an ad, but once you've decided it's an ad, it's too much work to program it to put it in a database. That's what our law asks: Just put it in a database.
You're saying, “That, we can't do.”
Global Director, Information Policy, Google LLC
The needs of implementing the law in the specific way it was written were prohibitive for us in this period of time to get it right, and if we're going to have election ads in the country, we absolutely need to and want to get it right.
That was the decision we had to make here, regrettably, but we look forward to working on it in the future.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
You could decide that you couldn't do it in six months' time, even though someone else could do it, and you decided you can instantaneously capture any ad from anywhere at any time, but you don't have the technological capability at Google to put it in a database within 24 hours. You just don't have that capability to program that in six months.
Global Director, Information Policy, Google LLC
We do not have the capability at this time to comply in fullness with that law.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
You don't have the capability. Are you serious when you say that?
Are you serious when you say that you can identify any ad from any platform anywhere, but you can't get your programmers to put it in a database? It will take too long for you to program moving it from being identified to just putting it in a database.
Global Director, Information Policy, Google LLC
I can't speak to everybody's services everywhere. To be clear, we use machines and people to monitor ads that are submitted through our systems to make sure they are in compliance with our rules.
In terms of the additional obligations, no, we were not able to meet them in this case.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Okay. I have another question for Google and Facebook, a simple question.
I don't like your terms of use. What can I do about it?
Global Policy Director, Facebook Inc.
Sir, if you could explain to me, perhaps give me a bit more colour about what you don't like about it....
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
You collect data on me that I don't want you to collect.
Global Policy Director, Facebook Inc.
As you know, I do spend a lot of time on digital literacy space. What is appropriate is for people to not put as much as they do not wish to put on the service.
Sir, if I may, to get to a different point on this, we are, as you know I think, going to be releasing a very different type of product experience in the next little while, where you're going to be able to remove not only information we have that you've put onto the service, but you're going to be able to remove also information that would have been on the service because of integrations with other services across the Internet. We are going to give you that functionality, so again, to the extent that is not desirable for you, we do want to give you that control.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Zimmer
Thank you, Mr. Baylis. Unfortunately, we have to move on.
Next up for five minutes is Mr. Kent.
Conservative
Peter Kent Conservative Thornhill, ON
Thank you, Chair.
This is a question for Mr. Chan.
If a Canadian employer came to Facebook and wanted to place an employment ad microtargeting by age and sex and excluding other demographic groups, would Facebook accept that ad?
Global Policy Director, Facebook Inc.
Sir, thank you for the question. Again, I want to also thank you for extending an invitation to us to be part of your recent round table in Oshawa. It was greatly appreciated.
That would be a violation of our policies, so it would not be accepted.
We have a couple of things and I think I understand what you're getting at—
Conservative
Peter Kent Conservative Thornhill, ON
If I can, because time is short.... Would it shock you to learn that we in the official opposition of Parliament have received an answer to an Order Paper question today that says that several Government of Canada departments have placed ads with exactly those microtargeted conditions and that your company is named a number of times.
Global Policy Director, Facebook Inc.
Sir, that is, as you know, through the incredibly thorough reporting of Elizabeth Thompson from the CBC, also out in the public domain, because I read it there first.
You should know that this is a violation of our policy, sir. We have actually moved quite aggressively in the last little while to remove a whole bunch of different targeting abilities for these types of ads. We have also—for housing, employment and credit ads, to be clear—required all advertisers on a go-forward basis to certify that they are not running housing and credit and employment ads.