Evidence of meeting #50 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 security.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Khabra, for joining us today and providing a wealth of information here on the security side.
You mentioned that most of your work is based on security and authentication. You also indicated that Canada's security's been intensive lately, and even the best in the world.
Can you expand on that? How lately has that work been done compared to, say, when you first began? You've been doing this for many years.
President, IBISKA
As you know, that technology had changed over a number of years. We have been involved in the security side of it for many years. Changes have been happening over a number of years.
In the past, people just got a threat and risk analysis, which is what the threats are, what the risks are and how to mitigate those kind of things. Nowadays, it's much more into the area where, with anything you develop—data or anything that people are trying to develop—people are looking to authenticate and authorize at every stage of the system. It is not only the technical side of it, but also the business side of it.
As I'm saying, CSEC has been really involved with different things. They do actually put out the guidelines for the whole government department.
As the technology has changed, obviously the process of security has also changed so far.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
In your view, those measures were taken with the ArriveCAN app.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Are you aware that the Privacy Commissioner reviewed the ArriveCAN app and found no major concerns? Is that right? Did that information come back to you?
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
In a letter to the opposition critics, the Privacy Commissioner wrote that “At this point, we are satisfied that exceptionally strong measures have been adopted...to ensure that the identity of users is protected and not disclosed to the Government of Canada.”
Can you explain what those measures were or how those work?
President, IBISKA
I cannot comment too much on those things because, as I said, our involvement with ArriveCAN was making sure that the application was working and was secure.
That's all I can say on that.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Okay. How many employees do you have, and how many of them worked directly on the ArriveCAN app? You may have mentioned that earlier.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
It was just one person. Okay.
Thank you. Those are all the questions I have at this time.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Bains.
Mr. Villemure, you have two and a half minutes to ask your questions.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, but I don't have any questions to ask.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Green.
We have no more questions on the Conservative side.
On the Liberal side, we have Mr. Fergus. You do have a five-minute round.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
First of all, thank you very much, Mr. Khabra, for coming in here today. I appreciate the work that you do and the knowledge that you bring to the authentication process and security process for the work you were contracted to do.
Mr. Khabra, if I could speak frankly, we have seen before on this committee that we have perhaps not been too kind to business people who have been called to testify here, and it's hardly a reputational boost for the committee as a whole, or perhaps certain politicians in particular.
In your line of work, I'm certain that any insinuation that you're being investigated by the House of Commons privacy and ethics committee would be unnerving—at least, I think it would be unnerving to me.
I want to give you a chance to set the record straight for those future potential clients who might be watching today. How can we reassure them to take us seriously as politicians trying to investigate, frankly, the excellent work that you have done?
President, IBISKA
I guess the only thing I can say is that, as I said, obviously we do a lot business with the federal government. I can tell you that our business with CBSA is less than 2%. We do business with many different departments. We provide services to National Defence and many different high-security departments.
The only thing I can say is that when we do talk to other departments or private industry, the federal government has much more protected information than private industry, for example. It's very well developed. In terms of the security aspect, the applications and systems in the federal government in Canada are very well developed.
At the same time, I think we are fortunate to be living in Canada, where we have an open government. We do respond to a lot of these ATIP requirements that come to us. We do that because this is an open government. We do provide that information. Nothing is hidden. On this contract and any task authorization that comes before us right now, the only thing we will not give, for comparative purposes, is somebody's name, due to privacy. Other than that, any information is available to people when they ask for the ATIP. It's all there.
Looking at Canada right now, I feel that the security aspect is very valuable to protect, but at the same time, I don't mind coming here to answer you, because at least this is open. People can ask questions, and something might come out of those. If something is not working, at least we can correct it. We can have lessons learned in this case.
I feel pretty privileged to be here. We are very well protected here, I think.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Excellent. Thank you for reminding us, Mr. Khabra, that we do live in an open society and we can have those questions asked.
I appreciate your coming here today. Again, it just appears to me, speaking frankly, that you might not have been the right person to have been invited to this committee here today, but we thank you for the work that you did and we thank you for your frankness and responding to us openly.
President, IBISKA
I'm also glad that I could clear my name here. The news media said we got $8 million. We did not get $8 million.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Right. I think that was a very important point to make. We will make sure it gets reflected in the record. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Fergus.
That concludes the round.
Mr. Kurek, do you have one more thing you'd like to add quickly?
Conservative
Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB
Yes. Thank you, Chair.
I do appreciate, Mr. Khabra, that for many of us, sometimes the interplay between technology and everything is a challenging subject. I'm glad you had a chance to talk. I appreciate your comments as well. Certainly I have more questions for the government about the way they've reported on the contracts that you've had.
Mr. Chair, I would move the following motion, if I could:
That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a) the committee order the Canada Border Service Agency to produce all reports, briefs, and memoranda written by IBISKA and its consultants related to the ArriveCAN application, and that they be submitted to the committee within two weeks of the adoption of this motion.
