I'll speak in some detail, but I would refer you to the key recommendations for a new private sector law that accompanied a letter I sent to this committee further to its study on data mobility. There are two or three pages of specific recommendations. I'll just point to the ones most relevant to your question.
When consent is appropriate—it's not always appropriate, but when consent is appropriate—it is very important that it be meaningful. Bill C-11 would have removed from the law the requirement in the current law that consumers need to have the knowledge and understanding necessary for consent to be meaningful. I think knowledge and understanding, which was not in Bill C‑11, needs to be reintroduced in the law.
Bill C-11 also allowed companies to define purposes for which they would collect information almost unfettered. Other laws provide parameters. Companies can only collect information for purposes that are “specified, explicit, and legitimate”. That allows the regulator to then determine whether the purposes defined by a company were indeed specific, explicit and legitimate.
Another important factor is accountability. We think that accountability in Bill C-11 was defined to broadly. It is important that corporate accountability be defined by an objective standard, i.e., adopting procedures to comply with a law. Bill C‑11 simply said that so long as companies adopt procedures, that's a demonstration of accountability. That is too subjective. The law needs to set out objective standards such as accountability means and procedures to comply with the law.
In broad terms, the law should not refer to subjective standards defined by companies or departments. The law should define objective standards that are knowable by citizens and companies. Companies would know and would have certainty through objective standards. These objective standards could be examined by the regulator to determine whether indeed the company was accountable in such a way as to comply with the law or whether there was sufficient consent based on knowledge and understanding by the consumer.