I am.
Thank you to the committee for the invitation to participate in this very timely study.
Obviously, Canadians are increasingly concerned about their privacy in the context of the border and cross-border data flows. Our association assists individuals to understand their privacy rights. Just this morning, in fact, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority announced that they are jointly funding our project with CIPPIC to produce a privacy and security guide for electronic devices at the border. We're doing this because Canadians need reliable and practical advice in this realm, but they also need appropriate protection in law and policy.
There are obviously a vast number of topics that could be discussed in this context, and only a few can be addressed in a given presentation. I am going to be discussing the U.S. Privacy Act and information-sharing agreements, while my colleague is going to be discussing appropriate thresholds for searches, the new preclearance bill, and solicitor-client privilege.
We, like our colleagues at the CCLA, recommend following the OPC's concerns relating to Canada's being added to the list of designated countries whose citizens are covered by the U.S. Privacy Act. As they set out in their March 8 letter to the Ministers of Justice, Public Safety, and Defence, this would increase the level of data protection for Canadians to that granted to individuals from various European countries.
Now, it's important to note—and perhaps our colleague at the ACLU will be picking up on this—that the U.S. Privacy Act offers only limited privacy protections, given a great number of significant exemptions, including those for law enforcement and national security. Nevertheless, Canadians who have come to understand that they are denied even these limited protections, in contrast to individuals from other countries, are right to call for this to be remedied.
The recently released report of Canada's first-ever consultation on the national security framework clearly provides important context to this committee in its study. It is evident that Canadians care very deeply about privacy and are adamant that the powers of investigation and data collection for law enforcement and national security must be demonstrably necessary, proportionate, and accountable. A deeply problematic secrecy has created a growing mistrust with respect to cross-border data flows and a concern about the genuine harms to Canadians that have resulted.
Recall, if you will, a flurry of news stories that broke out just a few short years ago about individuals in Canada denied entry to the U.S. on the basis of mental health information accessed by U.S. border officials. The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario had to do an investigation to even find out how U.S. border officials were coming by this sensitive Canadian health information. The privacy commissioner's report outlines how this information was being logged in the CPIC, the Canadian Police Information Centre's database, and accessed by the FBI via a memorandum of co-operation with the RCMP. That agreement allowed the FBI to further decide who else to give that information to, and they decided that the entities of the Department of Homeland Security, including border officials, should have access as well.
Those are just some of the tentacles of personal information flow facilitated by a single memorandum. We should note quickly, as I said, given the exemptions in the U.S. Privacy Act, that we would not see any remedy for those data flows if we were covered by that act.
The important question is, how much and what kinds of personal information are Canadian agencies providing to U.S. agencies through such information-sharing agreements? To our knowledge, no one knows the answer to that question.
We understand that the OPC had some years ago attempted an audit of such agreements and was unable to get the completed information. The OPC has again requested the co-operation of agencies within the government to collect the information on what information-sharing agreements exist in order to have a comprehensive picture of what important information flows are actually amounting to. We trust that this committee will appreciate the imperative of an audit of current information-sharing protocols and agreements and call upon the government to ensure full co-operation with the OPC in this urgently needed work.
Meghan.