Information & Ethics Committee on May 29th, 2019

[Damian Collins]

There was the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee in London, which I chaired with my colleagues here. We published some documents in December of last year that were relevant to the Six4Three case.

At the same time, there was also an investigation by The New York Times that suggested a series of major companies had entered into special data reciprocity agreements with Facebook so that they had access to their users' Facebook data and to their friends' data as well. Amazon was listed as one of those companies.

Could you say what sort of data protocols you have with Facebook and whether that gives you access not just to your customers' data or Facebook account holders, but also their friends as well?

[Mark Ryland]

I'll have to get back to you on that. I really don't know the answer to that question.

[Damian Collins]

It was a quite major story in The New York Times last year. I'm amazed that you were not briefed on it.

I'll ask the same question of Microsoft as well.

You can log into Skype with your Facebook account. Again, if you're connecting your Skype and your Facebook accounts, what sort of data are you sharing between them?

[John Weigelt]

As far as I understand, it's a simplified log-in from Facebook into your Skype account. When you connect, there should be a pop-up that provides you with an indication of what Facebook is giving to the Skype environment.

It's a simplified log-in type of environment.

[Damian Collins]

What type of data is shared between the different accounts? For users who do that, what type of data about their Skype usage is shared with Facebook?

[John Weigelt]

It's simply a log-on.

[Damian Collins]

Yes, but all these Facebook log-ins have data reciprocity agreements built into them as well. The question is whether—

[John Weigelt]

It's simply a simplified way to share an identity token, so to speak, so that you can log in to Skype.

[Damian Collins]

I know the way the basic log-in works, but these log-in arrangements with Facebook give reciprocal access to data between the two. There's actual connecting, effectively.

[John Weigelt]

It's nothing that would not have been disclosed in that initial connection, so when you connect, when you actually do that linkage, there is a pop-up that says this is the data that will be interacted or interchanged.

[Damian Collins]

Then it's in the terms and conditions.

[John Weigelt]

It's in the actual pop-up that you have to go through. It's a simplified term, and as I understand it, it's a tiered notice. It provides you notice of what the category of data is, and then as you click through it, you have the ability to dig deeper to see what that is.

[Damian Collins]

In layman's terms, would Facebook know who I was engaging with on Skype?

[John Weigelt]

I don't believe so, but I'd have to get back to you on that. I really don't believe so.

[Damian Collins]

Okay.

I'll just go back to Amazon. I want to quickly get this out.

Under “How do I connect my Facebook account to Amazon?”, Amazon.com says:

From Settings, tap My Accounts, and then tap Connect your social networks.

Tap Connect Your Facebook Account.

Enter your log-in information, and then tap Connect.

That is a pretty simple way of connecting your Facebook account with your Amazon account, so I'll just ask again: If you do that, what type of data are you sharing between the two platforms?

[Mark Ryland]

I'll need to get back to you on that. I really don't know the answer to that.

[Damian Collins]

Okay. I think this is pretty basic stuff. My concern is that data is being shared between the two platforms.

Again, in a question asked in The New York Times investigation, it said there were preferential data reciprocity agreements between Amazon, between Microsoft and Facebook, so that they not only had access to the data about the Facebook accounts of their users but the users' friends as well, which was a setting that had been turned off for other apps. However, the major partners of Facebook, in terms of the money they spend together or the value of the data, have preferential access.

Again, I'll ask one more time whether either Amazon or Microsoft can say something about that—the nature of the data, what it includes, and whether you still have those arrangements in place.

[John Weigelt]

I can't comment on—

[Damian Collins]

I don't know whether that means you don't know what to say or you don't know. Either way, if you could write to us, we'd be grateful.

[Mark Ryland]

Yes.

[John Weigelt]

Absolutely.

[Mark Ryland]

We'll follow up on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

We'll go next to Mr. Erskine-Smith for five minutes.

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

Thanks very much.

I first want to talk about ethical AI. This committee started a study on this topic, and the Government of Canada now requires algorithmic impact assessments for government departments when they employ an algorithm for the first time, as a risk assessment in the public interest. Do you think that should be a requirement on large public sector, big-data companies such as yourselves?

I'll start with Amazon and go down the table.

[Mark Ryland]

We strive very hard to work on good algorithmic fairness, and it's one of our fundamental principles. We have test data sets to make sure that we're constantly meeting the bar on that.