Evidence of meeting #43 for Industry and Technology in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was meta.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director, Public Policy, Meta Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
To my knowledge.... I don't know. I can't answer that question.
Jon....
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
I'll allow Mr. Shipley, perhaps, as an expert in this field, to offer a quick view on that.
Director, Public Policy, Meta Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
Well, Mr. Shipley seems to be offering stats from the U.K.—
Liberal
Director, Public Policy, Meta Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
—which are not applicable to Canada.
Director, Public Policy, Meta Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
He also seems to be getting his statistics from U.K. media coverage, which—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
Ms. Curran, I'm going to call you to order. I know you have a long history in Parliament, Ms. Curran. Surely you're familiar with the rules of Parliament. As chair of the committee, I dictate who has the floor, and I'm going to provide Mr. Shipley with the floor for a moment. I'll return with one further question before we suspend.
The floor is yours, Mr. Shipley.
Chief Executive Officer, Beauceron Security
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would go back to a member's question from earlier when we were doing some calculations where the number was not $16 billion but $6 billion. That was from the percentages we heard, and we did the quick math. That was revenue. They made money off of fraud. They may not have wanted the money—I genuinely believe them—but they absolutely made the money.
There's one last point I want to make. I used to be a reporter. Our local media is gone in this country. We're deserts. The advertising revenue that used to support local journalism that didn't have page after page of fraud ads in it was eaten by companies like this. They've taken no responsibility for these deserts, but they offer them a pittance with this line about $300 million. They enable the theft of billions of dollars. It's an outrage.
Director, Public Policy, Meta Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
Now we see Mr. Shipley's actual motivation, which is—
Director, Public Policy, Meta Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
—to ensure news publishers get money from companies like Meta.
Liberal
Director, Public Policy, Meta Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
Well, that is his real motivation. It's not—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
I'm going to ask for a bit of order here. Thank you.
My final question will be for you, Ms. Curran.
You've committed—and I appreciate that commitment—to providing the committee in writing through the clerk how much money Facebook has invested in Canada or globally on fraud prevention. I have a feeling that if members from political parties around the table don't receive that information in a timely fashion, they may be interested in raising that in other parliamentary platforms.
Assuming that you get that number back to us in a timely fashion, that the number is accurate and that it proves, once you've done your research internally...there's a second component we need. There are three things I'd ask you for. The first is how much money Facebook Canada is investing in Canada—or internationally if you feel that you can't dissect the two markets—on fraud prevention. Second, how much do you estimate you have earned from fraud or scams that have occurred on your platforms in Canada or internationally?
Then the third thing I'd like you to please provide to the committee would be this. If it turns out that the amount of money you have made—to Mr. Shipley's point, perhaps unintentionally—on your platforms through fraud ends up being more than what you've invested, which I suspect it is significantly, will you commit in writing back to this committee that you will invest the difference back into fraud prevention?
Those are the three things I would ask you to report back on, please, Ms. Curran, to the committee at your convenience.
Director, Public Policy, Meta Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
Yes, we can absolutely do that.
I would say we have invested $30 billion in anti-fraud measures, safety measures and security measures on our platforms over the last decade. I would be very surprised if that number was less than what has been lost, unfortunately, to really tragic and unfortunate instances of scams on our platforms, but we will certainly report back to you on that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
My final question, Ms. Curran, for you is this. Perhaps it's more of a point of reflection than anything regarding technical policy. It gets to a question my colleague Madam O'Rourke asked you a few moments ago.
I've been a parliamentarian for a number of years. I've been around Parliament for a very long time. I have never seen in my capacity as a chair or as a member of Parliament a set of witnesses receive as much unanimity across parties in relation to the subject line or content of the questions you have received today. I'd like you to offer a reflection on that. Why do you believe that Conservative, Bloc and Liberal members of Parliament are all taking the very precious time they have around a committee table to ask you the same questions, and why do you think they are responding, as we've seen from all sides around the political spectrum today, with an attitude that shows they seem to be less than satisfied in regard to the answers they've been receiving?
Director, Public Policy, Meta Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
I think it is because this is a serious issue. It's a serious issue for Canadians. We ought to address it. I know you invited some of our colleagues here today, other members of the tech industry, who declined to appear, but we wanted to be here because this is an important issue.
We want to ensure that we reduce the incidence of frauds and scams in Canada. We want to make sure that our platforms are not a place where Canadians get defrauded or scammed. We want to engage with policy-makers like the members of this committee to ensure that we're working together to decrease the incidence of that. Honestly, Mr. Chair, that's why we're here.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
I appreciate that.
Mr. Shipley, Ms. Quaid, Mr. Camfield and Ms. Curran, thank you for availing yourselves of the committee today for an important conversation in regard to the role that a variety of different industry players and, of course, the citizenry and public policy-makers in Canada play in ensuring the health and well-being of all people across the country vis-à-vis the protection against fraud and scams. I appreciate your time.
Colleagues, I'm going to suspend for five minutes while we turn over to our next witness, who will be appearing online.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
We're going to continue our second hour.
Colleagues, please take your seats. We are running significantly over time, and we are going to do our best to squeeze in a good, solid conversation.
From the Australian Banking Association, we have Nicholas Giurietto. Sir, you're on the other side of the world and it's a different time of day. You have a full day ahead of you. We have a full day behind us, and we're looking to add a bit to it. Thank you very much for availing yourself of us. We certainly appreciate the deep bond and partnership between our two countries.
Sir, you're going to have up to five minutes. I know there's a lot of interest in what you have to say. This is only the second meeting we've held in relation to this study, but the Australian example has been raised on numerous occasions, and we look forward to understanding it a bit more through your testimony.
With that, the floor is yours for up to five minutes.
Nicholas Giurietto Head of Future Policy, Australian Banking Association Inc.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good evening, and good morning from Australia.
My name is Nicholas Giurietto, and I head financial crime policy at the Australian Banking Association. That's the main industry representative body for the banking sector in Australia. My area of responsibility includes AML-CTF, cybersecurity and scams, and I've been heavily involved in the development and now implementation of the Australian government's scam prevention framework. This has involved collaboration with government policy bodies, various regulators and colleagues from other industry sectors.
The unifying purpose of all of these stakeholders is a shared desire to keep Australians as safe as possible from the scourge of scams conducted by global organized crime gangs. Our approach is to work together to stop scams before they happen, not simply requiring one part of the scam chain to take responsibility for protecting or refunding customers. It's about acknowledging the complexity of our digital world by working together to stop scams at the source. The Australia scam prevention framework has attracted a lot of attention around the world as the first example of an anti-scams regulatory regime based on the principle that all industry sectors must do their share to tackle scams.
Going first is hard. There are many details to be worked through in translating an important simple policy proposition into real world implementation. That can be difficult in practice. Some of the challenges still remain to be resolved in Australia. Nevertheless, the early signs are positive, and we remain more convinced than ever that the only way to minimize the devastating harm that scams cause to everyday Australians is a coordinated cross-sectoral ecosystem approach with each industry sector doing their bit.
The scam prevention framework has two basic principles. The first is recognizing that sophisticated methods of a scam attack occur across industry sectors and indeed often deliberately exploit the gaps between them. The scam prevention framework requires all sectors in the scam chain to take appropriate action to prevent, detect and respond to scam attacks.
Each sector has a responsibility to harden their business processes against scammers with analogous but industry-specific obligations. For example, the requirement on banks to apply rigorous know-your-customer checks when opening an account is matched with an analogous obligation on telcos to check the legitimate business need for a SIM box capable of sending tens of thousands of SMS messages in an hour, or an obligation on digital platforms to confirm the bona fides of an advertiser of an investment product. The exact obligations are different, but the purpose for each sector is the same: trying to keep bad actors out of the system from the start.
In Australia, we have commenced the SPF rollout with the three core sectors: banks, telcos and digital platforms. This acknowledges the practical fact that you have to start somewhere. However, it's acknowledged that our national suit of armour against scams will not be complete until all other sectors that can be involved in a scam chain are also part of the coordinated response. These include crypto exchanges, non-bank money remitters, remote access software providers, online marketplaces, gift card providers and many more. Unfortunately, the ingenuity of scammers knows few limits, and it is of little comfort to a scam victim to know that the front door to their life savings has been kept secure when thieves have been able to climb in the window.
The second key principle of the SPF is cross-industry data sharing: facilitating the secure and privacy-compliant exchange of data that indicates a scam risk. Actionable scams intelligence, as it is described in the SPF legislation, is an essential tool in the anti-scam response.
Despite the best efforts of all participants, it is not always possible to protect the first victim from the scam, but the rapid exchange of actionable scam intelligence, followed by prompt action—for example, taking down a scam website or blocking a compromised telephone or bank account—can quickly close that vulnerability and protect the hundreds or even thousands of potentially subsequent victims. Scammers can continue to probe the defences, but by reducing their success rate and increasing the cost of their business model, we make Australia a less attractive target.
The most effective approach to deliver cross-industry data sharing is through private-to-private collaboration—for example, through the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange, which I understand will be providing testimony today—with appropriate linkages to law enforcement. The key role of government is to provide the policy framework that enables secure and privacy-compliant data exchange with appropriate safe harbour protections.
I will conclude my initial comments at this point and would be delighted to offer any further insights from our experience in Australia that the committee may wish to request.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
Thank you very much, sir.
I didn't ask, but where in Australia are you coming in from?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
That's wonderful.
Mr. Guglielmin, the floor is yours for six minutes, sir.