Evidence of meeting #97 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 content.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:10 p.m.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My first questions are for Meta's representative, Ms. Curran.
Ms. Curran, you are Meta's head of public policy in Canada.
Is that correct?
5:10 p.m.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
The committee is concerned not only with privacy and the protection of personal information, but also with ethics.
Do you think that the omnipresence of social networks, such as Facebook, in people's daily lives means that they should be considered an essential service?
5:10 p.m.
Head of Public Policy, Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
No, I wouldn't say they're an essential service. I think they are tools and products that Canadians enjoy using. They enjoy using our platforms to share information about their families and friends. They enjoy finding out what's happening in their communities. They're really tools that Canadians use to connect with one another. I think that's particularly important in a country like ours, which is so geographically spread out. Communities are far apart from one another. We're dispersed across a very large territory.
We think Meta's products and services help Canadians connect with one another, not as essential services, but as tools that Canadians enjoy using.
5:10 p.m.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
You say that Canadians share information on social media, including news-related content.
Meta has chosen to block local Canadian news on its platform. Do you think this is preventing people from accessing quality information?
5:10 p.m.
Head of Public Policy, Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
Monsieur Villemure, we would love to not be in this position. We would love to have news on our platforms. The problem is that the government, through Bill C-18, the Online News Act, has asked us to pay an uncapped amount, an unknown amount, for content that has no commercial value to us.
We believe we provide a great deal of value to news publishers in the form of free distribution and marketing. That amount we've calculated at $230 million per year. We would love to get back to putting news on our platforms and providing publishers with those free tools. We're not able to do that under the framework of the Online News Act.
Mr. Villemure, if you could work with your government colleagues to make amendments to that legislation that would allow us to put news back on our platforms, we would love to do that.
5:10 p.m.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
I agree with you.
The media are the fourth estate. In particular, the media enable citizens to understand what's going on and make informed decisions. Personally, I find it rather troubling that Meta doesn't go one step further. It's a private company, and it has the right to make money, of course.
You say that the government should act. What are you proposing?
What are you proposing so that Canadians and Quebecers can be well informed?
5:10 p.m.
Head of Public Policy, Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
We think, Mr. Villemure, that there is still a lot of credible information on our platforms. There is information from Quebec policy-makers. There is information from civil society in Quebec. There is information from non-governmental organizations that are based in Quebec. All of those outlets, all of those individuals and groups still have a presence on Facebook and Instagram, and they're still able to share information with Quebeckers.
Where the problem is, and where we're stuck, is with respect to news outlets. If we can solve that problem, we could put news content back up on our platforms.
We still think there is a lot of credible information on our platforms for Quebeckers to access.
5:10 p.m.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
I represent the riding of Trois-Rivières, where the local media are dying. They're not big media, but small ones. They're closing down one after the other, because they can no longer afford journalists and in-depth reporting.
Of course, the national media are still there. But the local media industry is being killed off. I think the responsibility is at the very least shared.
What are your observations on this subject?
5:10 p.m.
Head of Public Policy, Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
Yes, I think there's a genuine public policy issue to address here, which is, how do we best support local media and journalism? It's a cornerstone of our democracy.
Meta was very involved in supporting media outlets and supporting journalism in Canada. We had private deals that were worth close to $20 million per year with news outlets across the country, including in Quebec. Those are no longer possible under the framework of the Online News Act.
I think we need to figure out, as industry, as policy-makers, how to support journalism and how to support the local news ecosystem in a way that makes sense for all of us. It doesn't make sense to try to extract money from two American tech companies to prop up the Canadian news ecosystem, so let's figure out, together, a better solution.
5:15 p.m.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
What can our committee do to bring local media back to Facebook?
5:15 p.m.
Head of Public Policy, Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
I would suggest this, Monsieur Villemure. We have heard this from local publishers as well.
We are a very different platform from Google. We do not scrape news content from the Internet or aggregate it in our search results. It has very little commercial value to Facebook or Instagram.
If we were carved out of the Online News Act, so that the requirements of that act did not apply to us, or if there was a carve-out for local journalism, we could bring that back onto our platforms.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Ms. Curran.
Thank you, Mr. Villemure.
Mr. Green, go ahead for six minutes.
December 13th, 2023 / 5:15 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you very much.
Welcome to all the guests who are present.
I'm going to put a series of questions to you in a rather rapid way. If I reclaim my time, it's not to be rude, and I'm certainly not trying to make anything personal, but I'm going to put forward some pretty quick questions.
I'm going to start off with Mr. Fernández.
Mr. Fernández, Amnesty International, in a recent report, cited your shift in the new privacy policy, which allows you to collect users' biometric data and access encrypted messages, but “biometric” is not determined or defined.
How do you define “biometric data”?
5:15 p.m.
Head of Government Affairs, United States of America and Canada, X Corporation
If I may, I will pass that to my colleague Josh, who is the privacy counsel.
5:15 p.m.
Senior Privacy and Data Protection Counsel, X Corporation
In the instance of the biometric data that's referred to in the updated privacy policy, that's speaking specifically to information that might be presented on somebody's identification card. For example, this might be a picture or any other biometric information that might be on that identification card that they would have presented pursuant to their application to—
5:15 p.m.
Senior Privacy and Data Protection Counsel, X Corporation
It would be stored like any of our other information pursuant to our data classification systems. This would be higher sensitivity—
5:15 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
You're storing biometric information the same way you store other information, and you're a company that has already been a victim of data breaches. Is that correct?
5:15 p.m.
Senior Privacy and Data Protection Counsel, X Corporation
No, I didn't say it's the same way that we store other information. We would do it pursuant to our data classification system. The biometric information would be higher sensitivity. Then there would be more restrictions on the storage of that data.
5:15 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Would you agree that this is the highest of sensitive information, and that it poses a pretty significant security and privacy risk?
5:15 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Also, what are you doing with that information specifically? Can you sell it?