Evidence of meeting #58 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 office.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
It was 76% in 2014-15, so there has been a bit of improvement there. It's a question of ongoing discussions with departments and companies to ensure they comply with our recommendations. Of course, this is relevant to our recommendation under the Privacy Act for order making powers. If we had order making powers, that question would either not arise or would arise only exceptionally.
Right now, we make recommendations. For the most part, the institutions that we oversee comply, so that's almost 80%. It's good, but if we want to increase that percentage, order making would certainly be relevant.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
The other vision that you have is to have more outreach and public education.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
In another part of the report, it talks about the percentage of Canadians who feel they know their privacy rights. You targeted 70%, but the last measurable year was only 32%. How are you trying to fill that gap?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
That's probably our biggest challenge overall.
Liberal
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
We have quite a gap, between 30% and 70%, which is our objective. I think it's going to take a while before we get to 70%. In part, the website is the tool that we have. For education, there are certain activities that the OPC can undertake, like the web and participating in conferences. We have certain material that we give to teachers, although that is not part of the official curriculum in most provinces in Canada, but teachers who want to use our resources are free to use them in class. That would be another way to do that.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
Do you think it should be? Do you think it's an important endeavour?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
In the official curriculum...? Absolutely.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
One of the other things I noticed is that in this year or the coming year, you're going to spend more money on capital assets. I was wondering what capital assets you would be spending more money on?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Monsieur Nadeau.
Director General and Chief Financial Officer, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Are you referring to table in the—
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
I don't have it in front of me. I had it before. I'm trying to look for it.
Director General and Chief Financial Officer, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
It could very well be. I don't have it in front of me either. As an organization, we have thorough planning as it relates to our IT infrastructure and our ongoing equipment and assets. From year to year, we go out and invest certain sums to make sure our equipment and infrastructure is up to date.
This year, I don't think it should be a large bump, but perhaps our IT infrastructure. The refurbishment this year is—
Liberal
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
Out of curiosity, when we look at total revenues, in 2016, you forecasted revenues of $100,000. In 2017-18, you're forecasting a revenue of $200,000. Then it will drop down to $100,000. What is the revenue?
Director General and Chief Financial Officer, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
We were talking earlier about hosting our IT infrastructure. I believe you had the Commissioner of Lobbying earlier this week. We have this collaboration with them where we are actually hosting their website and a portion of their infrastructure on ours, so we invest some expenses and in return, they pay for that through this revenue authority.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blaine Calkins
Thank you very much.
Mr. Kelly, go ahead, please, for five minutes.
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB
I'm going to pick up right where I left off before. You were going to talk about the stress that certain frequent complainers have on your office. I would like to get the details and your answer or expansion on that. You talked about one particular source of, I think you said, 5,000 complaints. How do frivolous and vexatious complaints affect your budget?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
In the last two or three years, two people have been responsible for over 5,000 complaints, 5,400 complaints to be precise, for the period from 2014-15 to 2016-17. There are other people who complain frequently, although not at that level of volume.
If we had the authority not to deal with complaints that are frivolous and vexatious, an authority we have under PIPEDA but not under the Privacy Act, that would certainly help with some of our workload pressure.
Currently, we have some discretion in how to deal with these cases, not to refuse to investigate, but in order to ensure that a small number of people do not monopolize our resources, we ask these complainants to choose from their many complaints which five or so they want us to give priority to. That way, somebody who has one or only a few complaints is not disadvantaged by our having to devote our time to one or two people who complain more often. This means that the all but five or so complaints of these one or two people are held in abeyance and there are administrative costs that come with that. People will write to us about the status of their files and so forth. It is less than desirable.
These two individuals present the biggest problems, but the problem of vexatious and frivolous complaints is broader than just two individuals. I don't want to exaggerate the problem, but these are some of the circumstances where the authority to refuse to investigate would provide some relief to our resources.
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB
Thank you. I appreciate the detailed information.
Do you know what percentage of your budget or what portion of your budget is being, as you put it, monopolized or unduly taken up by a handful or small number of vexatious...?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Because of the strategy we adopted, the percentage of our budget currently monopolized is not huge. It is less than 5%.