Industry Committee on May 29th, 2020

[Michael Bryant]

Professor, the only thing I'll say is this: I think the control over the data is a more important question than ownership of the data. I'm not saying that the ownership is irrelevant, but I think for the purposes of the topic at hand, the issue is really about control and not about ownership. That's all I have to say, other than repeating myself with respect to the different interests that are at stake. I think some bottom lines would need to be set, for example around data leakage to police and other investigation institutions or agencies. They should not be getting what amounts to public health data under any circumstances.

Professor, what do you say?

[Prof. Teresa Scassa]

I think control is the issue. Right now our privacy laws are weak in comparison to, for example, the GDPR, in terms of the rights of control they give to individuals. They are also weak in terms of the enforcement if there are breaches of those rights. The rights of control are tremendously important, and I think we have work to do there.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Am I to understand that, for you too, the question of ownership is secondary when compared to the question of control?

[Prof. Teresa Scassa]

I think ownership is misleading. It's misleading and it's a distraction because there are these multiple competing interests. A company or an organization, an entity, that has collected data has an interest in that data, as does the individual from whom it's collected. To start talking about ownership in that context is meaningful. It's about rights of control.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

Our last round of questions will go to MP Masse. You have two and a half minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you.

I'll go to Professor Scassa first, and then to Mr. Bryant.

Professor, I proposed a digital bill of rights that would basically enshrine your physical rights to be almost the essence of your digital rights. Without getting into the details on that, is that something we should have as a divining principle, or at least a benchmark, that we could then actually have protected by the Privacy Commissioner or the Competition Bureau and other different public agencies that rule on whether or not our information is abused, misused, and then have it modernized to be protected in Canada, but also for international agreements? That's the concept. It's more robust than that, but the essence of it is that your physical rights are replicated in your digital rights.

[Prof. Teresa Scassa]

It's an interesting concept. I have to confess that it's not one that I've thought a lot about. I don't want to waste your two minutes hemming and hawing and thinking about it.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

That's okay; no worries.

Mr. Bryant, do you have any comments on that?

[Michael Bryant]

I think I'd better undertake to have CCLA review it and get back to you with a proper answer, rather than providing a bunch of qualifications in your two minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

That's fair. We've been working on this.

My last quick question is for Professor Scassa to start and Mr. Bryant.

Do we need to have, at the end of the day, international treaties as well to deal with consistency of our data use and management as part of our trade negotiations?

[Prof. Teresa Scassa]

I think we're getting to a point where we need to have international standards, because we are constantly running up against, for example, very low thresholds for data protection, which are below our own, with respect to U.S. companies, and this causes enormous problems. How we will get a consensus internationally and whether it will put us above or below the level of protection that we currently have is anybody's guess, but we do need to have some sort of international privacy consensus.

[Michael Bryant]

I think first we need to have a national consensus and we need some national laws. We need to update the data laws. I'm sure you don't disagree with that, but I'm going to put an emphasis on that. The international treaties are out of my jurisdiction.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much. That is all the time we have for today.

I really want to thank everyone for their patience and flexibility in terms of extending the time we had today.

With that, I call this meeting adjourned.