Information & Ethics Committee on Dec. 13th, 2023

[Nathaniel Gleicher]

I think, to give you a full and comprehensive answer, it would be best for us to come back to you in writing on that.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Okay. That would be wonderful.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You have one minute and 38 seconds.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Excellent.

We're going to go to Google.

Do voice products, such as Google Assistant and Google Home, have the capability to store recorded audio?

[Jeanette Patell]

With devices, they will all have individual settings, so people can make the choices that are right for them.

I think your question was whether the audio could be stored. Is that correct?

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

That's correct, yes.

[Jeanette Patell]

I think I'll need to get back to you on that.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

That would be great. I mean, if it's a no, that's one thing. However, if it's a yes, I'd like to know why. What is the need for the audio to be stored? If that could be part of the response back, Mr. Chair, that would be appreciated.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway.

We have 20 minutes left with the witnesses. If we have the unanimous consent of the committee, I would allow Mr. Villemure and Mr. Green to ask questions. In fact, each party would have five minutes of speaking time. That would bring us to the end of this round of questions.

Is that agreeable? That's fine.

Mr. Barrett, go ahead for five minutes.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

We talked, in Ms. Vecchio's questions, about the protection of folks from inadvertent exposure to sexually explicit material. I'm keenly interested, though, in what steps each of your platforms is taking to prevent the transmission or display of sexually exploitative material—sometimes referred to as child pornography—on your platforms.

I think the prevalence of sexually explicit materials, in and of itself.... What each of your respective platforms is doing with respect to age verification is one issue. This is a separate issue from that. Could you each take about 45 seconds to say what active steps you are taking to prevent the facilitation or distribution of sexually exploitative materials of minors on your platform?

We'll do the same order that I went through last time, starting with X Corporation, please.

[Wifredo Fernández]

Child sexual exploitation has no place on X, and we're working to make it the most inhospitable place for people who want to distribute child sexual abuse materials. Over the last year, we've been more aggressive in our enforcement of such material on the service, restricting the search for this material, increasing our training for agents to make reports to the cyber tip line, and automating our process for reporting to the cyber tip line for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the United States, which acts as a global clearing house for tip lines in different jurisdictions. We recently announced a product partnership with Thorn to enhance our detection capability.

We're doing a lot in this space. The work continues, but this has zero purpose on our platform.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

I have the same question for Meta, please.

[Rachel Curran]

Thank you, Mr. Barrett.

We lead the industry in this space. I'm really proud of our work on this front. It's so important. We've developed new technologies to keep this abhorrent abuse off our platforms. In fact, we've removed more than 34 million pieces of child exploitation content from Facebook and Instagram in Q4 of 2022. Over 98% of that was detected before it was reported.

We use a combination of technology and behaviour signals to detect and prevent child grooming or potentially inappropriate interactions between minors and adults. We also help law enforcement find and prosecute the criminals who commit these heinous acts, including by responding to requests for information from law enforcement, providing instructional guidelines and training, and supporting the development of a case management tool for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children cyber tips.

We've also built long-standing partnerships with anti-trafficking experts and child safety organizations, including organizations like OneChild in Canada, to help protect kids. Other organizations include Thorn, Polaris and Stop the Traffik.

Look, I would say that although we are doing industry-leading work, our work is never done here. It's a highly adversarial space. We know there are a lot of bad actors there, online and off-line. We're going to prioritize our work to protect vulnerable kids.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

I appreciate your answer. Thank you.

I have 45 seconds remaining.

This is for Google, with the same question, please.

[Jeanette Patell]

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this because [Technical difficulty—Editor] more important than keeping children safe.

At Google and YouTube, in addition to the similar activities of the other platforms in detecting and removing this content, we are also leaders in providing hashes of that content to NCMEC and then freely providing those hashes to other platforms, so that this content cannot be recirculated on other platforms. We work with law enforcement to ensure that perpetrators are prosecuted where possible and as appropriate. We are very focused on not allowing this content on YouTube.

The final thing I'll say on that is that if you look at our policy and community guidelines around nudity and sexually explicit content, you'll notice that in fact they are written in such a way that content that is intended for sexual gratification is prohibited on YouTube. That is informed by our work with external experts in this space.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Ms. Patell.

Ms. Khalid, you have five minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I'll start again with Meta.

This is a yes-or-no question, if that's okay. You did say that Meta is not an essential service. Billions of people use it across the world. Do you think that you have a duty to protect Canadians?

[Rachel Curran]

Listen—

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I'm sorry, just say “yes” or “no”, if that's okay. I want to get around to everybody, please.

[Rachel Curran]

I'm sorry, but the question is not entirely clear. Protect Canadians from what, Ms. Khalid?

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

It's to provide a safe platform for them to be able to use this service that you give to them.

[Rachel Curran]

Agreed, and it's to provide credible information on that platform, yes.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you.

I have the same question for Google. Do you have a duty to protect Canadians on your platform?

[Jeanette Patell]

We take our responsibility very seriously. It is our number one priority to provide a responsible and safe platform for all of our users.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Do you have a duty to protect Canadians on your platform? That's what I'm asking.