In my presentation, when I spoke of other avenues, I was also referring to the consent document of the federal commissioner's office and the document submitted to committee members. These documents show the different possible avenues.
Last fall, the federal commissioner's office conducted a consultation. The other avenues considered related to the issue of whether we should move toward no-go zones where it wouldn't be possible to collect personal information and whether we should have much more detailed privacy policies. Also, in its 2011 five-year report, the Commission d'accès à l'information had already recommended that legislators establish detailed privacy policies.
In other words, there would be a fairly detailed general policy and a simplified policy. It's what we call multi-layered policies. These simplified policies can be adapted to each communication tool, such as a cellphone, tablet or computer. There could be even icons or pictograms showing that the required consent concerns people under the age of 13 or parents. It would be something very visual.
As you said, we can't access certain sites without clicking everywhere or filling in all the boxes. To provide a simple email address, does the person's location need to be known and does all sorts of information need to be collected? It happened to me this past weekend. I won't name the site, but we can't register for it without filling in an entire page that contains at least 10 questions.
In this type of case, is our consent truly free and informed? We must ask ourselves these questions. The answer lies in the question.