Thank you, Chair.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome, Privacy Commissioner.
In my time today.... I know we're focusing on the main estimates, but what's crucial for me is that your office has the pertinent resources for you to effectively undertake your job and your mandate. That's what's important to me, so on that level those are my thoughts.
I want to move on to something in terms of.... I've read about and followed your office very closely since joining this committee late last year. We just listened to the study that Mr. Angus referred to. When it comes to meaningful consent, this document from May 2018 says:
Meaningful consent is an essential element of Canadian private sector privacy legislation. Under privacy laws, organizations are generally required to obtain meaningful consent for the collection, use and disclosure of personal information. However, advances in technology and the use of lengthy, legalistic privacy policies have too often served to make the control—and personal autonomy—that should be enabled by consent nothing more than illusory. Consent should remain central, but it is necessary to breathe life into the ways in which it is obtained.
Can you comment on that introductory paragraph?
I read your March 25, 2021 speech, and I read the Clearview AI information put forward. I still can't believe it stated that “Canadian privacy laws do not apply to its activities because the company does not have a 'real and substantial connection' to Canada”, even though it collected three billion images of Canadians and came up with that data.
Can you elaborate on meaningful consent, and how we need to balance that between consumer objectives, business objectives and individual objectives?