Information & Ethics Committee on May 28th, 2019

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That's not the one that I read to you.

[Kevin Chan]

We are aware of this. I have spoken to some of my colleagues in Germany with respect to this. Our understanding is that the GDPR needs to, obviously, be enforced and interpreted by data protection authorities in Europe.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Thanks.

We need to move on.

We will go next to Monsieur Gourde for five minutes.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Over the years, the digital platforms you represent have developed very powerful, even overly powerful, tools. You are in the midst of a frantic race for performance. However, it isn't necessarily for the well-being of humanity, but rather for the personal interests of your companies.

Let me make an analogy. You have designed cars that can travel up to 250 kilometres an hour, but you rent them to drivers who travel at that speed in school zones. You have developed tools that have become dangerous, that have become weapons.

As a legislator, I do not accept that you rejected out of hand your responsibility in this regard. These tools belong to you, you have equipped them with functions, but you don't necessarily choose the users. So you rent your tools commercially to people who misuse them.

In the election we'll have in Canada in a few months, will you have the technical ability to immediately stop any fake news, any form of hate advertising or any form of advertising that would undermine our democracy? Will you be able to act very quickly? At the very least, can you stop all advertising during elections in Canada and other countries, if you cannot guarantee us absolute control over the ads that can be placed on your platforms?

We'll start with the representatives from Facebook, then I'd like to hear from Google and Twitter.

[Kevin Chan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Gourde.

I'll start by saying that we'll do everything we can to protect the election in October 2019.

As you know, we are working closely with the Conservative Party, the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party. The other parties should be mentioned, including the Green Party, the People's Party, the Bloc Québécois—

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Excuse me, Mr. Chan, but it isn't about parties. It's about people who will have to make a choice based on the information we will provide to them, not on fake information.

Do you have the ability to quickly stop the spread of fake information or even to stop altogether any advertising that can be placed on your platforms, if you don't have control over it?

[Kevin Chan]

Thank you for the question.

Here, in Canada, we have a team that works on each election. We have done this in Ontario, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick—

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Please don't list all the provinces.

I want to know if you have the ability to stop the spread of any hate advertising or any fake information at any time during the next election.

[Kevin Chan]

For the time being, in all the other elections, there have been no problems that we haven't been able to resolve quickly.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you.

I have the same question for the representatives from Google.

[Derek Slater]

Getting this right is absolutely essential. We do invest heavily in efforts to both anticipate and prevent efforts that would interfere with election integrity. That's by making useful information available in search or dealing with actors who might deceive or misrepresent themselves in ads.

[Carlos Monje]

Twitter has spent a significant amount of time improving our internal ability to spot this type of disinformation. We've learned from elections around the globe. We've actively engaged with civil society here, most recently in the Alberta elections, and we believe we are very prepared. However, we cannot take our eye off the prize. It's going to be the people who want to manipulate the conversation who will continue to innovate and we will continue to innovate to stay ahead of them.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Based on your answers, I remain doubtful and concerned.

You cars can drive 250 kilometres and hour, but the speed limit on the highway is 100 kilometres an hour. Are you able to reduce the capacity of your tools so that it is fair and equitable for everyone?

What is the point of having such powerful tools if it is to do evil, when a lesser performance could serve the good of humanity?

[Kevin Chan]

If I may, I will speak in English to be clearer, since it's my mother tongue.

I just want to say, Mr. Gourde, that's exactly what we're going to do. Next month, as your party and other parties in Canada are aware, we're introducing a very friction-intensive process for anybody who wants to run political ads. We are going to require them to authorize, to demonstrate that they're Canadian. We will need to independently validate the fact that they're Canadian, and then we're going to have to give them a code—or a key, if you will—where they're going to authenticate before they can run an ad.

This is not going to be a thing that happens in an hour. It's not going to be a thing that happens in a day. It's going to be a multi-day process. You have my assurance that we'll be reaching out and working in strict collaboration with all political parties in Canada to take them through this process. Precisely to your point about speed bumps or brakes, I would say this is going to be significant friction in the system, but we think this is the right thing to do in order to get ad transparency right, it's the right thing to do to get regulated political advertising right and it's an important thing to do to guard against foreign interference.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Thank you, Monsieur Gourde.

Next up is Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you so much for these presentations. They're very helpful.

Mr. Chan, we know that Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg are very important people. Are they busy today?

[Kevin Chan]

I am not aware of their schedules today, but I think that's right. They unfortunately had to send their regrets.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay.

I'm trying to get a sense of corporate governance with Facebook. You come from Canadian politics. You worked for the Liberal Party. We're kind of meek and mild here in Canada. I don't ever remember a summons being issued against the head of a corporation. I don't know of anybody who has ever decided to ignore a summons.

Surely to God they have something really pressing to keep them busy. When Mr. Zuckerberg recently spoke, as my colleague pointed out, about his willingness, his desire to talk with legislators. Was that a joke?

This is for Mr. Chan. I'm interested in Mr. Chan because he represents us in Canada.

[Kevin Chan]

Well, sir, I have to say that we do desire very much to collaborate with the Parliament of Canada and the Government of Canada. The election that's before us is going to be an important one, and an important one for us to get right at Facebook. We want to ensure a free and fair election. That's why we have done all the things that we have done.

We're complying with Bill C-76. To my knowledge, we may be the only company represented on this panel that is moving forward with an architectured system to do this. We have moved quickly on hate figures and hate organizations in Canada, and we have signed on to the Canada declaration on electoral integrity. I would—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Yes, thank you for that. Sorry, I only have a few minutes.

I appreciate that work. I'm a big fan of Facebook.

[Kevin Chan]

Thank you, sir.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I've spoken greatly about the powerful tools it has in the indigenous communities I represent.

My concern is this idea of opt-in, opt-out that Facebook has when it comes to national law. First of all, you ignored a summons by Parliament because Mr. Zuckerberg may be busy. It may be his day off. I don't know.

You were recently found guilty by our regulator in the Cambridge Analytica breach. Our regulator, Mr. Therrien, said:

Canadians using Facebook are at high risk that their personal information will be used in ways they may not be aware of, for purposes that they did not agree to and which may be contrary to their interests and expectations.

This could result in real harms, including political...surveillance.

What was striking was that Facebook didn't concede that we have jurisdiction over our own citizens. If you're saying you're willing to work with parliamentarians, I don't get this opt-in when it works for Facebook and opt-out when....

Can you give me an example of any company saying that they just don't recognize whether or not we have jurisdiction over our citizens?

[Kevin Chan]

Sir, my eyebrows were also raised when I saw those reports, so I did read it carefully and I did talk to legal counsel about it.

My understanding is that this was in reference to the fact that, to our knowledge, based on the available evidence around the world and based on documented evidence, not only in terms of contracts and things like that, but also witnesses who have first-hand accounts, there was no Canadian, or indeed, no non-U.S. user data that was ever transferred to Cambridge Analytica. I believe, if I may—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay, but on that point—I only have a short period of time—622,000 Canadians had their data taken. Facebook became aware of it in 2015, and Facebook said nothing until it was exposed internationally because of the Cambridge Analytica breach. That is a breach of Canadian law under PIPEDA.

You know that law, yet to tell Canadian legislators that we had to prove individual harm before Facebook would concede jurisdiction, that to me would be like an international auto company saying, “Yes, there were mass deaths in Brazil; yes, there were mass deaths in the United States; yes, there were mass deaths all over Europe; but since nobody died in a car accident in Canada, we are not going to comply with Canadian law.”

How do you get to decide what laws you respect and what laws you figure don't apply to you? Why do you think that?

[Kevin Chan]

Mr. Angus, with all due respect, we actually go over and above the law—