Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 22nd, 2021

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

It's not working?

[The Chair]

Okay, you're back on. Great.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

I hope I get an extra minute because of technical difficulties.

I want to thank all the witnesses for coming forward.

Mr. White, first things first, I remember in 2019 that the government announced an expansion of the national strategy for protecting children from sexual exploitation on the Internet. I think that the total was over $22 million. Specifically, $15.25 million was to enhance the capacity of the Internet child exploitation unit, which is the ICE unit.

Can you tell us whether that capacity of RCMP's ICE unit across the country has been enhanced as a result of this additional investment?

[D/Commr Stephen White]

Thank you for that question.

We did receive additional funding. We have implemented new resources, both in the national crime centre here in Ottawa which I mentioned, the National Child Exploitation Crime Centre, as well as in ICE units across the country. A lot of those units across the country are integrated units. They're made up of RCMP and other local police services as well.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Along the same line as my Conservative colleague's question, we heard testimony from witnesses saying that subsidiary companies of MindGeek sometimes shared content, or moved some non-consensual or child pornography content to other platforms to add content to them.

In itself, isn't that a violation of the Criminal Code? Have you done any investigation on their intentionally adding content to subsidiary companies to make money? Have you done any investigations on that?

[D/Commr Stephen White]

No, we're not aware.... We haven't been informed of their adding their own content, child sexual exploitation content, if that's what you're referring to.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Let's say going forward, if you find there's enough ground to start an investigation, would you be able to go back...?

MindGeek told us that they made some improvements on their approval process or screening process so everything is great now, but would you be able to, retroactively, take a look at their actions in the past?

[D/Commr Stephen White]

It would depend on the preservation of data retention policies that they have. How long they retain their data is often different across different companies or platforms, Internet providers. That is always a concern for us when we're doing investigations, trying to look backwards for a period in time, whether or not that data has been retained.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

In your view, or based on your knowledge of Pornhub, do you think it has met its obligation to report?

[D/Commr Stephen White]

I can't say, but under the mandatory reporting act, there is a very strict requirement there.

My understanding is that we have received reports from NCMEC in the United States from Pornhub. Now, I am not in a position to say that what we received is all that there is to receive, but I can confirm that I've been informed we have received some disclosures.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

This is a very interesting point you brought up. I didn't get a chance to ask this in the previous session.

Why is Pornhub reporting to NCMEC as opposed to reporting to the authority directly? Isn't it very strange that they report to a not-for-profit organization and not to the police?

[D/Commr Stephen White]

In the United States, one of the reporting entities is NCMEC. That's why a lot of the disclosures we get, not just from Pornhub but other Internet service providers and hosting platforms.... If they have a presence in the United States, they are able to disclose to the American entity as well.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

We know its headquarters are in Montreal, but we also heard through testimony that it has subsidiaries all over the world. That's basically the business model. Would that itself pose any challenge to your ability or your authority to look into their operations?

[D/Commr Stephen White]

Yes, it does, without a doubt. It's always a challenge for us when we're talking about large international entities such as this one, and where they're housed could be different from where they're incorporated. Where they're incorporated and housed could be different from where they maintain servers with their data. They may also have data that exists in cloud storage, which is evolving as well. All those add, without a doubt, certain levels of complexity for investigating.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

I just want to confirm. You have not started any investigation against MindGeek or Pornhub. Is that correct?

[D/Commr Stephen White]

No, we have not—not to my knowledge.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Can you confirm this and let the committee know afterwards?

[D/Commr Stephen White]

We'll look at that, yes.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you.

To your previous point, is there anything that the committee can recommend to the government to make it flexible and easier for you to look at the wider scope of your practice around the world?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brenda Shanahan]

You have 20 seconds.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

If you could provide some recommendations afterwards to the committee, that would be appreciated.

[D/Commr Stephen White]

Those would be recommendations with regard to what? I'm sorry. I missed the question.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

To enable you to look at the wider operation of MindGeek, since it's a transnational company with various financial tentacles around the world, is there anything the committee can do to help you to effectively investigate, if there is an investigation?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brenda Shanahan]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Gaudreau, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. White, my colleague was talking about an increase in investments of more than $22 million, which allowed you to increase your staff to work on the problem.

Even if money is spent today, even if people can no longer download the content that has been removed, we would like to know what happened in the previous months. So I have three questions for you.

Does the amount of money collected always correspond to the number of complaints you receive, or do you now monitor preventively?

How is it that it was through the media that we learned that MindGeek, which owns Pornhub, had broken the law?

How do you intervene preventively, and how do you handle complaints?