Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen of the committee, good morning.
My name is Jeanette Patell. I am responsible for government affairs and public policy for Google and YouTube in Canada.
I am joined by my colleague Shane Huntley, who leads a group dedicated to protecting Google and its users from advanced threats, including those posed by state-sponsored attacks.
We recognize the committee's efforts to make Canadians aware of the unethical and illegal harvesting and sharing of personal data and the risks to which Internet users around the world are exposed.
Data plays an important role in making the products and services that Canadians use each day more helpful. When Canadians use our services, they are trusting us with their information. This is a responsibility that we take very seriously at Google. We protect user privacy with industry-leading security infrastructure, responsible data practices and easy-to-use privacy tools that put our users in control.
Tools such as our privacy checkup and our security checkup give people personalized privacy and security reminders and recommendations, including flagging actions that they should take to immediately secure their Google account.
These two verification functions allow users to customize, step by step, the security and confidentiality controls based on their personal preferences.
We also have an advanced protection program, which is available to anyone but is specifically designed for individuals and organizations—such as elected officials, political campaigns, human rights activists, and journalists—who are at a higher risk of targeted online attacks.
Treating our user data responsibly and protecting user privacy include protecting data from third parties. That's why it's our strict policy to never sell our users' personal information to anyone. When it comes to government requests for user information, our team carefully reviews each request to make sure that it satisfies applicable laws. If a request asks for too much information, we try to narrow it, and in some cases, we object to producing any information at all. We have also taken the lead, through our transparency reports, in being transparent about government requests for user information.
In addition to these industry-leading tools and strict protocols, we invest significantly in global teams and operations to prevent abuse on our platforms. One of those teams is our threat analysis group.
I'll now let my colleague Shane speak about the work that his group does to secure our users' information against bad actors.