Evidence of meeting #24 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 laws.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Frankly, I have a lot of difficulty seeing how it could be legitimate and proportional for a company, other than a telephone service provider, to follow their customers every few minutes of every day.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid
Thank you very much. That concludes your time, Mr. Williams.
I will now go to Mr. Bains for five minutes.
Go ahead, sir.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for joining us today.
In your submission to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General on the modernization of the Privacy Act, you indicated that you were in support of the proposed enhancement to transparency proposed in the government's discussion paper. Would explicit transparency requirements under the Privacy Act enhance the principles of open government and public trust in government institutions?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I'm sorry. I did not catch the question.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I heard your preamble. I did not catch the question.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Would the explicit transparency requirements under the Privacy Act enhance the principles of open government and public trust in government institutions? What are your thoughts on that?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Well, sure. Transparency and openness are well-recognized privacy principles, and it would be an improvement for the law to include them, yes.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
The departmental plan indicates that you anticipate legislative changes that would grant the OPC “greater enforcement powers” and are preparing the office accordingly. Have you started to make those preparations? If so, what are they?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
We're at the analysis and conceptual stage, obviously, and we're not hiring anyone because there's no legislation that has been adopted, but again, I thought it would be important not to be caught off guard and to think internally how we would we organize and what kinds of professionals we would we need to exercise this or that new responsibility, including adjudication, so that if a new legislation contains similar provisions as Bill C-11, we would have a head start and might be able to hire people, develop procedures and develop policies.
One area where we intend to do some work is again on this question of order-making and adjudication. That activity will most likely require rules of practice, which will have an impact on the regulated entities, who obviously will want us to act fairly in adjudicating complaints. We have started to give some thought to what would be the adjudication process so that we can consult stakeholders as to whether we have it remotely right, and that would accelerate the adoption of these rules.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Thank you.
What progress did you make on paving the way for increased informed consent and what are your hopes for the new commissioner in this respect?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
What would be my recommendations for enhanced consent?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
If we're talking about the private sector, I would refer you again to the two-page key recommendations, including primarily reintroducing in the law the requirement that consent requires the consumer to have knowledge and understanding of the purposes for which the information is about to be used. That requirement was omitted from Bill C-11, and I think that's an important problem. It would not lead to meaningful consent.
Liberal
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
We had the Information Commissioner at the committee. In response to being asked about the effects of remote work on her office, she said that she was very pleased and surprised that the office was able to close a record-breaking 6,800 cases last year. What has been the OPC's experience with remote work? Have you had the same success as the Information Commissioner's office?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Remote work is effective. Very early, after the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, we moved to a teleworking arrangement, and the vast majority of our people work remotely and effectively. This coincided for us, though, with the sunsetting of a special budget that we had to tackle a backlog of complaints. We had almost eliminated our backlog. It's starting to increase slightly, but we're still in a good position overall.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Bains.
Could you please begin, Mr. Lemire?
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you also for making an effort to speak French.
Mr. Therrien, in the winter and spring of 2022, the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics conducted a study on the collection of use of mobility data by the federal government. Further to your written replies to questions from committee members and the resulting report, how urgent is it for Parliament to audit or conduct a legislative review of federal privacy legislation?
Let us consider PIPEDA specifically. We know that Minister Champagne was supposed to introduce reforms this winter.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
It is urgent, to say the least, and should have been done some time ago. I think the government knows there is a problem with trust in the digital economy. That is why Bill C‑11 was introduced at the time. We had certain concerns about the content of the bill.
As to the private sector, the act is 40 years old, and 20 years old for the private sector, preceding the creation of Facebook by five years. The world has completely changed since these laws were passed and there is obviously an urgent need to update them.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
This is fascinating, indeed.
Mr. Therrien, are there times during your tenure when you have witnessed actions the government has taken, or even a lack of action, that impacted the privacy of Canadians?
Have you witnessed times when political interest was prioritized over the common good?