Evidence of meeting #12 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cards.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Vice-President, Emerging Business, Rogers Communications Inc.
Yes. I have meetings booked already.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
I won't ask you what the negotiations look like or how hard it's going to be. I'll leave that discussion up to you guys.
Mr. Robinson, you're the VP for emerging business. I'm going to take the opportunity to get into a dream scenario. You're focused on mobile payments and things like that. That's the main topic today, but what other opportunities are there? What can we expect?
I had the opportunity to visit the wireless showcase—I can't remember what it was called—a few weeks back, and I saw some pretty amazing things there. Where are we going in the digital world right now?
Vice-President, Emerging Business, Rogers Communications Inc.
That's a big question.
One of the areas someone mentioned is government. I participated in the payment task force, including the digital ID. There's an area that is fascinating and very interesting. There were some questions and worries about security and privacy. A mobile phone where you can carry your digital ID allows you to do all sorts of things. It allows you to have higher degrees of privacy.
Today it is perfectly normal to go to a liquor store and, to prove your age, hand over a card that has your address on it, a photo of you, the type of driver's licence you have, your height—information that is irrelevant to what a liquor control board of a particular province needs. So you can now manage the degree of information that is passed, rather than handing over a generic card. There are also enormous cost savings in providing remote services to government agencies, for example.
The cost of health care is a massive problem in this country, provincially, right? Health professionals would like to be able to support users of the system remotely, but you have to be able to validate that the person on the computer is the person in question. If we can hold government ID in a phone securely, and you're online getting the results of your brain scan, the government agency will be able to know that the person on the other side of the phone who presented the government-issued health card from, say, the province of B.C., is actually that person and now can provide that brain scan result back to the user without worrying that it's being given to the wrong person. You can't put that back in the box—there's no zero liability for, oops, giving a brain scan result to the wrong person.
The task force, the digital ID group, is basically saying they like the distribution model being created for global payment methods. They'll adopt it and embrace it, because it's good enough for global payments, and it's good for regional government providers.
I could go on, given what I do, but....
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
I think John had one more question. I'm just going to throw the ball to him.
Conservative
John Carmichael Conservative Don Valley West, ON
Just for clarity, my colleague asked Mr. Lebeuf, I think, about the wave...?
Conservative
John Carmichael Conservative Don Valley West, ON
Right, RFID, the wave on these cards.
There was a national media story not long ago about how easily these cards are scanned. From a personal security perspective, am I to understand that all they're getting is a number, that the card is totally secure, there's no data transfer, and that as a consumer you have nothing to worry about?
Vice-President and Head, Customer Delivery, MasterCard Canada
That's correct. We're aware of this firm that sells things that “protect” the cards, and they go around to media outlets and show how they can scan some pieces of information off the card. There is some consumer fear over that.
But from an industry perspective, what we're telling the media and anybody, quite frankly, who will listen, is that the information cannot be used. It's not putting the cardholder's personal information or data in jeopardy, and it cannot be used to complete a transaction.
Head of Products, Visa Canada Corporation
Yes, I absolutely concur, and I--
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
Actually, we're out of time on that one. Thank you.
Now on to Mr. Regan for five minutes.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Lebeuf, you talked earlier about the situation with merchants having the kind of information that Mr. Carmichael was talking about. What about the situation where you have an unscrupulous merchant--let's a crime organization? Isn't there a concern that they would have access to information you wouldn't want them to have access to, or am I wrong?
Vice-President and Head, Customer Delivery, MasterCard Canada
Well, I guess it's not beyond the realm of possibility, but merchants are vetted by acquiring financial institutions who bring them on board, and certainly online merchants represent a higher risk because we're talking about future delivery. The acquirers put these merchants through an on-board vetting period where they take a look at the business model, the rigour of the merchant, and at the principles involved before they sign them up.
Quite frankly, they are assuming some risk. If you are a retailer and I sign you up, and you process $100,000 worth of transactions, you never deliver any of those goods, and you disappear, I'm on the hook for that, as the acquirer.
There is a lot of work in that regard as far as the acquirers go. We have a number of compliance programs that monitor merchants as far as chargebacks, whether or not they're selling illegal goods. We work closely with law enforcement globally, ensuring we don't have merchants doing, among other things, child pornography. Selling illegal goods is something we monitor as well. We'll contact the acquirer and deal with the merchant and, if needed, terminate them from the system if they're violating our rules.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Thank you.
Mr. Robinson, you talked earlier about the difficulty with locating towers these days, so let me ask where I can find information on towers you have. In other words, can I find out the wattage of an individual tower? Can I find out what frequencies it's using?
I've had concerns from constituents about that, and it's very difficult to get the information they're asking for. Actually, it's been impossible in my experience, but perhaps I haven't looked in the right places.
Senior Vice-President, Regulatory, Rogers Communications Inc.
Industry Canada maintains a database where all the radio antennas are registered. For people who know how to use that database, it's all there. There are also a surprising number of hobbyists who have websites that show all the Rogers towers, sometimes complete with photographs, and they're online too.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
This actually occurred a few years ago, as a matter of fact, so I'll have to recheck to see if we can find that out now. I don't think it was one of your towers, you'll be glad to hear. I happened to knock on the gentleman's door in the spring and I heard about it again, so I was certainly reminded of this and the fact that we weren't able to find out the power, I guess, of this particular tower. It won't surprise you to hear that he lives across from a church that has a tower.
But let me go on to Mr. Bradley and Mr. Lebeuf about the barriers we discussed earlier, the fact that Interac has a monopoly in our debit system in Canada, that the regulations prevent the credit and debit card from being the same thing...although we're talking about accounts here, as opposed to cards, right?
In your opinion, why haven't these barriers been removed already?
Head of Products, Visa Canada Corporation
If I could just clarify, I wouldn't characterize Interac as having a monopoly on the debit market in Canada. In fact, as I described earlier, we've launched a debit card with CIBC. That debit card works at Interac, at the point of sale, and then, when it's used to shop online or over the phone or internationally, that piece of functionality that you can expect from Visa works as a debit transaction running on Visa. So the two coexist well.
I think what Don was referring to was that because of Interac's dominance at the point of sale and its acceptance with merchants, it becomes extraordinarily challenging, to the point of being effectively impossible, to launch a stand-alone Visa debit card—I won't speak for MasterCard—that would feature the acceptance that Interac has.
In fact, the co-badged structure is one that's very common and it exists in just about every market around the world. When Mr. Lebeuf was describing the problem, it's that the code of conduct actually prohibits competitive co-badging on the cards.
Liberal
Head of Products, Visa Canada Corporation
The code of conduct is still in early days. It has been 12 months. As I said in my initial remarks, it has brought a lot of very positive aspects to the market. It has made a lot of great contributions in terms of transparency and disclosure. It was always contemplated to be an evolving document—a point in time. We'll be working with all of the key stakeholders to continue to allow it to evolve to embrace the very best level of services for Canadian consumers, merchants, and the economy.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
Thank you very much, Mr. Bradley and Mr. Regan.
If the committee will indulge me, I have two questions to clear up some things I heard today that would be good for us to have more specificity on.
It was mentioned that in other countries the debit and credit cards coexist. In the other counties, is there zero liability for the consumer, as there is zero liability here for credit?
Vice-President and Head, Customer Delivery, MasterCard Canada
Credit and debit typically don't co-reside on the same card. I was referring to two debit networks residing on the same card, which is what co-badging refers to in Canada. Speaking for MasterCard globally, zero liability is offered to MasterCard holders, to my knowledge, in all 210 countries in which we operate.
Vice-President and Head, Customer Delivery, MasterCard Canada
It's for MasterCard debit and MasterCard credit.
Head of Products, Visa Canada Corporation
It is. There are circumstances around the world where debit and credit do coexist on a card, so the consumer can choose at the point of sale if they want credit or debit. Brazil is one example I'm aware of. We think prohibiting that within the code would prohibit an option that some consumers would really opt for.