Evidence of meeting #13 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was privacy.
Liberal
Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
What problem is the fact that Elections Canada is not bound by the Privacy Act, in the way that the other departments are, creating?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
This brings us back to what I was talking about earlier. In my view, all handling of personal information within the electoral system should be reviewed in the light of today's privacy protection standards. The Canada Elections Act is silent in this regard, because it is completely exempted from the Privacy Act. For example, if someone makes inappropriate use of personal information on an MP's office, there is no recourse.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
Thank you.
We'll have time for another round.
So the committee is clear on this, my understanding is that we have a number of issues wherein the Chief Electoral Officer wants to use other data from other data banks and the national register of electors to share information back and forth with the provinces, and so on.
I'm hearing that it is not a violation of the Privacy Act because the Canada Elections Act is not subject to privacy. Is it your feeling that perhaps it should be and some sensitivity to the modern privacy issue should be maintained by the Chief Electoral Officer?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Exactly.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Are these now five-minute rounds?
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
This is perhaps a comment to colleagues, but Mr. Kingsley said he would put these in envelopes. We've just established that.... Here is one of the three voter cards I was issued under different names at my house. All it establishes is that Scott Jeffrey Reid will be voting at one of the following places, which is hardly personal information. Putting it in an envelope would cost a pile of money and accomplish absolutely nothing, so I suggest we don't pursue that particular suggestion.
In my case it doesn't even have accurate personal information, since it manages to leave my first name off the card the commissioner has. It doesn't even assert that I'm one person; I became three people. Anyway, you can see where I'm going with this.
But I want to talk a little about the use of identity, not so much in the sophisticated way where people compare databases and draw up information about you to determine that you're a 35-year-old female who enjoys alternative country music and snowboarding and therefore proceed to inundate your e-mail account with direct marketing offers, but rather it's about the kind of information that becomes an issue when you are a female who lives in an apartment building and don't want it known that you live in apartment 1014 and who therefore arranges, as many apartment building do, that the numbers listed when you go into the lobby are not the numbers of the apartments, for reasons of safety and security. This potentially could violate that kind of information, though obviously not mine, because it goes in my mailbox in my house in a small town.
There appears to be a problem with a minority of mail carriers, but it's not a negligible minority, or at least that's the impression we have on this committee, some of whom are going into apartment buildings and—who knows why, perhaps to save themselves work—are not actually putting these particular pieces of addressed mail into the appropriate mail slots, but rather are leaving them at the side in a pile.
Sometimes people take their own card and toss it in a corner, but that appears not universally to be the reason these things are available to others.
It seems to me this does represent an invasion of privacy, in the sense of providing someone who might be loitering in the lobby and wants to come in for whatever reason—breaking into an apartment, stealing, or perhaps even worse.... It does represent a breach of security, with that kind of person, which raises an issue. Elections Canada, according to the Chief Electoral Officer when we asked him when he was here earlier, has an agreement with Canada Post that this won't happen, that the mail will be delivered. But there are no actual sanctions under the Elections Act for taking this particular kind of information and tossing it aside rather than delivering it.
I'm wondering if it's your view that the privacy I'm describing would be better served if there were actually a specific offence under the Elections Act for someone who, failing to deliver this kind of information to the appropriate person, fails also to, say, return it to the post office to be destroyed, or returned to the electoral officer, or whatever, but who simply takes it and leaves it in some public place.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
The problem you've described, honourable member, is a real problem. Many of us who live in urban environments know that. You've talked about the right to be anonymous, to live anonymously, without identifying oneself to one's neighbours.
You asked a specific question. I'm not sure I have the expertise to answer it. I don't know what the deterrent effect is of adding new penalties to the Canada Elections Act, or whether it is an issue of training letter carriers that you should take up with Canada Post, or..... There are probably many angles to this. Who manages the vestibules of many of these multiple dwellings is, I think, an issue in modern society.
You would also have to look at the implications. I think the idea of respecting the privacy of those who don't want to be publicly identified except when they're required to be is interesting, but then there's a whole commercial practice around this. You'd have to look, I would think, in all fairness at parallel provisions for the private sector, where sometimes you find your name on all kinds of information that comes to your door, although you have not necessarily remembered giving it out to the person who sends it.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
I think one thing that's different here, though, from most commercial mailings—although not necessarily from all government mailings—is that it arrives at the same time for everybody in the apartment building, presumably on the same day, but in each case is personally addressed. I'm on a zillion mail order catalogue lists, but I get them and my next door neighbour probably doesn't, and they're getting things of a similar nature that focus on their personal interests and not on mine. So I don't think you're getting quite the same phenomenon you get in commerce. I think that's correct.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes, but I'm just pointing out that it also exists in the private sector. This is a very large question that you're opening, so perhaps before saying that a response immediately to that is to add a penalty to the Canada Elections Act, I'm just saying, honourable member, maybe there are a couple of facets that we should look at.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
Maybe I will intervene later, Mr. Chairman.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
Okay. Thank you.
We will go to round three now. I would ask that members consider making their questions far more efficient.
Mr. Simard.
Liberal
Raymond Simard Liberal Saint Boniface, MB
I have just one question, Mr. Chair, about something I would like to understand a little bit better, and it's with regard to one of the comments Mr. Preston made earlier. If we wanted to use the social insurance number as an identifier, one of the comments you made was that it depends how bad your problem is. I find that very subjective.
So if we feel that we have a substantial problem here in terms of potential election fraud, then we could use whatever we'd like to, and the Privacy Act wouldn't kick in. Or let me understand that please.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Thank you. If that's what I gave you to understand, thank you for allowing me to correct myself.
I was pointing to one of the basic data protection principles, which says you don't use personal information except in proportion to the objective you're trying to reach. So the only way that you can correct a serious problem of electoral fraud is by using an identifier--and I certainly would not suggest the social insurance number, as it's a very strong one--then use it in proportion to the problem you think it's going to correct and only in proportion with that. But I do not know of any electoral system that uses something like the social insurance number. They usually use more public ones like the date of birth, which Mr. Kingsley suggested.
Liberal
Raymond Simard Liberal Saint Boniface, MB
Why would that be an issue? Why would using the social insurance number as the identifier be an issue in terms of privacy?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Because the social insurance number's a very strong identifier and is used for our most personal files, notably our income tax file. Most of our government files include as an identifier the social insurance number--I think virtually all of them. They are cut across provincially for our health files and so on.
Usually your financial and your health information is about the most sensitive information that you can have.
Liberal
Raymond Simard Liberal Saint Boniface, MB
And we wouldn't include the right to vote as an important factor? You don't believe this would be considered as one of the key things that a person does in his life?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
No, the right to vote is clearly a fundamental freedom. It's a cornerstone of the democracy. Canada wouldn't exist if we didn't have the right to vote.
But what I'm trying to suggest is how serious are the problems, not that you feel, but that you can objectively have verified through a credible, serious study of electoral problems. How serious are they, and is moving to a stronger identifier going to correct those problems or is something else, like electoral reorganization and training? I think professionalization of election workers is also an issue that you're examining and so on. That's--
Liberal
Raymond Simard Liberal Saint Boniface, MB
But it certainly is subjective to a certain extent. There's no doubt. We have to make that decision if we feel that electoral fraud is a big enough issue for us to be able to move ahead with that kind of a thing.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
You're the legislator.
Conservative
Joe Preston Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
I have a couple of questions. It's been asked, but I'm not sure I've heard the answer. Can we use census data to create a permanent electors list? It has all the factors in it. It has name and address, age, so we'd know they're of voting age, and it has citizenship.
Can the Chief Electoral Officer pull from census data every 10 years one permanent voters list and then repair it over those 10 years until he gets to the next?