Evidence of meeting #101 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was use.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Do you think it is necessary for a privacy impact assessment to be conducted within your department to ensure the trust that democracy depends on to function?
Acting Chief Information Officer, Department of National Defence
I think privacy of information is absolutely key. We absolutely need to make sure that the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the data are protected. That's why we're also protecting our network to protect the information and to make sure that the information is used the way it needs to be used.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Why are we reading reports that you have not conducted a privacy impact assessment?
Acting Chief Information Officer, Department of National Defence
In the department, we have a number of privacy impact assessments ongoing right now. We are currently, in the CIO group more specifically, working on one with Microsoft 365. We do have a few ongoing right now.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Are you in touch with our Privacy Commissioner to help you through that process?
Acting Chief Information Officer, Department of National Defence
We have a team in National Defence that is in touch.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
What are some of the challenges that you and your department are dealing with to ensure that a PIA is conducted effectively?
Acting Chief Information Officer, Department of National Defence
I'm not in a position to speak to that. I'm the CIO, so I'm not in a position to speak to the relationship between that organization and National Defence. Others are in a position to speak to that.
Acting Chief Information Officer, Department of National Defence
We're not surveilling Canadians.
As I said, we're here to support Canadians. We're here to keep them safe. We're monitoring networks. We're not monitoring people.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
If you needed to surveil a Canadian, is there a legal process through which you would do that?
Acting Chief Information Officer, Department of National Defence
It's not our mandate at all, but if another department or organization needed our help there, that would have to be done through specific processes.
Dave, do you want to add a bit more on that?
Brigadier-General Dave Yarker Director General, Cyber and Command and Control Information Systems Operations, Department of National Defence
We would not be called upon to surveil Canadians. That's not within our mandate or remit.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Thank you very much for that.
I'm moving on to NRCan with the same questions.
What is the purpose of privacy impact assessments to you?
Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer, Department of Natural Resources
From our perspective, similar to our colleagues in DND, privacy impact assessments are about protecting the information and ensuring that, from our perspective, the information we have is gathered the right way, we're using it the right way, we're protecting the integrity of the information and, as discussed previously, we're reinforcing trust across government and departments.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
How high does privacy rank within your department in terms of priorities as you conduct your operations?
Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer, Department of Natural Resources
It's definitely extremely important from our perspective.
Being new in the role—as Pierre is as well—it is something that's extremely important to us. We want to continue to monitor progress in that space as we move along.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Why haven't you conducted a privacy impact assessment?
Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer, Department of Natural Resources
From our perspective, the tool has never been used. If we were to use it, we have PIAs ready to go and available should that be the case.
We would be using this only further to our security mandate and by ensuring we follow the right protocols, which we have in place. Should this tool be necessary to investigate, then we would do a privacy assessment prior to using the tool.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Have you been in contact with the Privacy Commissioner on this privacy impact assessment challenge?
Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer, Department of Natural Resources
We have not on this one, per se. We have a team within the department that's responsible for this.
I can reassure you that we have been in constant communication and discussion with them. Pierre and I, being new to the department, want to continue the great work that's being done in that space. We will continue to ensure that we're lining things up from that perspective.
Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer, Department of Natural Resources
No.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
What are the challenges your department faces in dealing with privacy when it comes to ensuring privacy for Canadians while also fulfilling your roles?
Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer, Department of Natural Resources
Maybe I can pass it to Pierre.