Information & Ethics Committee on May 29th, 2019

[Alan Davidson]

I think that actually—

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

I love it when someone agrees with me.

[Alan Davidson]

We were looking for some yeses.

You've heard examples already. We firmly believe that you can build good and profitable businesses and still respect people's privacy. You've heard some examples today. You've heard some examples from us. You can see good examples of laws that are out there, including the GDPR.

There are things that are probably beyond the pale, for which we need to have either clear prohibitions or really strong safeguards. I would say that I wouldn't totally reject consent. What we need is more granular consent, because I think people don't really understand—

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

Explicit consent.

[Alan Davidson]

—explicit consent.

There are lots of different ways to frame it, but there is a more granular kind of explicit consent. That's because there will be times when some people will want to take advantage of health apps or sharing their location with folks and with their family. They should be able to do that, but they should really understand what they're getting themselves into.

We believe that you can still build businesses that do that.

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

Thank you.

Some of the concerns we've been looking at are in trying to get our heads around AI. This is the weaponization of digital media. AI could have a very positive role, or it could have a very negative role.

Mr. Ryland, certainly Amazon has really moved heavily in terms of AI. However, Amazon has also been noted as a company with 21st century innovation and 19th century labour practices.

With regard to the allegations that workers were being monitored right down to the level of being fired by AI tracking, is that the policy of Amazon?

[Mark Ryland]

Certainly our policy is to respect the dignity of our workforce and to treat everyone in a proper fashion.

I don't know the specifics of that allegation, but I'd be happy to get back to you with more information.

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

It was a pretty famous article about Amazon. It said that right down to the seconds, the workers were being monitored by AI, and those who were too slow were being fired.

I may be old school, but I would think that this would be illegal under the labour laws in our country. That is apparently how AI is being used in the fulfillment centres. That, to me, is a very problematic misuse of AI. Are you not aware of that?

[Mark Ryland]

I'm not aware of that, and I'm almost certain that there would be human review of any decisions. There's no way we would make a decision like that without at least some kind of human review of machine-learning types of algorithms.

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

It was a pretty damning article, and it was covered in many international papers.

Would you be able to get back to our committee and get us a response?

[Mark Ryland]

I would be happy to follow up with that.

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

I don't want to put you on the spot here, but I'd rather get a response on this. I think we would certainly want to get a sense of Amazon's perspective on how it uses AI in terms of the monitoring of the workers within the fulfillment centres. If you could get that to our committee, it would be very helpful.

[Mark Ryland]

I will do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Thank you, Mr. Angus.

We'll go next to our delegation.

We'll start off with Singapore.

Go ahead, for five minutes.

[Sun Xueling, Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of National Development, Parliament of Singapore]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have some questions for Mr. Alan Davidson.

I was reading the Mozilla Manifesto with interest. I guess I had some time. I think there are 10 principles in your manifesto. Specifically on principle 9, it reads that “Commercial involvement in the development of the internet brings many benefits; a balance between commercial [benefit] and public benefit is critical.”

That's what principle 9 says.

Would you agree, then, that tech companies, even with the desire for growth and profitability, should not abdicate their responsibility to safeguard against abuse of their platforms?

[Alan Davidson]

We absolutely agree with that. I would say that the manifesto, for those who haven't seen it, is really like our guiding principles. It was written almost 15 years ago. We just updated it with a new set of things we've added on to it to respond to modern times.

We think, yes, that balance is really important, and I think companies need to be thinking about the implications of what they're building. I also think government needs to put guardrails around it, because what we've seen is that not all companies will do that. Some companies need guidance.

[Sun Xueling]

Also, I think there was an Internet health report that Mozilla Foundation put out, and I'd like to thank your organization, a non-profit working for the public benefit. I think the Cambridge Analytica scandal was referred to, and your report says that the scandal is a symptom of a much larger systemic issue, that the dominant business model and currency of today's digital world is actually based on gathering and selling data about us.

Would you agree, then, that the Cambridge Analytica scandal somehow demonstrates a mindset whereby the pursuit of profit and the pursuit for company growth had somewhat been prioritized over civic responsibility?

[Alan Davidson]

Yes, but our hope is that some of those are isolated instances. I would just say that not every company operates that way. There are, I think, companies that are trying to do the right thing for the user, trying to put their users first, and it's not just for altruistic purposes; I think it's because many of us believe that you build a better business and in the long term should be rewarded in the market if you put your users first.

[Sun Xueling]

We also heard testimony yesterday. I think many of the grand committee members had spoken with businesses who talked about examples around Sri Lanka or Nancy Pelosi. It seemed that it was more about putting information out there, freedom of reach rather than real protection of freedom of speech, because there's no real freedom of speech if it is founded on false information or misleading information.

While we like to think that the Cambridge Analytica scandal is a one-off, I think our concern is that the existing business models of these corporate entities do not seem to give us the confidence that civic responsibility would be seen in the same light as company profits. I think that's where I'm coming from.

[Alan Davidson]

As somebody who has been in this space for a long time, it is really disappointing to see some of those behaviours online. I do think that part of it has been the evolution of these business models, especially the ones that reward engagement as a major overriding metric. Our hope is that companies will do more and do better.

There is a risk in too much government intervention in this space, because we do want to make sure that we respect free expression. When governments are making strong choices about what is true and not true online, there's a lot of risk there. I think there's a serious balance needed there, and I think the starting point is using this bully pulpit to really push companies to do better. That is the right starting point. Hopefully that is effective.

[Sun Xueling]

Yes. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

We'll go next to our Ireland delegation and Ms. Naughton.

[Hildegarde Naughton, Chair, Joint Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Houses of the Oireachtas]

Thank you. Thank you all for coming before us this morning.

My first question is to Amazon. Last November, on Black Friday, I understand there were technical issues. Many of the customers' names and emails appeared on your website. Is that correct?

[Mark Ryland]

No, that's not correct.

[Hildegarde Naughton]

No? Okay. I thought there was some reporting in relation to that. Were there some technical issues last November?