Ms. Bickert.
Evidence of meeting #29 for Justice and Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was facebook.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #29 for Justice and Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was facebook.
A video is available from Parliament.
1 p.m.
Head of Policy Management, Facebook Inc.
We certainly comply with all applicable laws, but we take the approach that we do to transparency because it's important to us and to the people who use our product.
1 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
Mr. Beckerman, you seem to be suggesting that the legislation stands in the way of telecommunications companies being more transparent. Do I understand you correctly?
1 p.m.
President, The Internet Association
The way I understand the bill is that through judicial oversight, it could block the aggregate disclosure of information requests.
1 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
Thank you.
Ms. Zwibel, do I understand you correctly to say that Bill C-13 will result in tracking devices, including software, and that it would afford government the power to install malware to track a person? Did you say that?
1 p.m.
Director, Fundamental Freedoms Program, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
I did, and that is my understanding of the change to the definition of a tracking device and a transmission data recorder. I can pull out the sections.
This is something that was recently brought to my attention by some people who are much more technologically savvy than I am. There is a blog post about the change that this represents by a gentleman by the name of Christopher Parsons, who is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto.
It's my understanding that what this does, in changing the definition.... It used to be that with judicial authorization you could, for example, attach a device to a car if you wanted to track where that car was going. The fact that the definition now includes software and that it could be extended to a device that an individual has with them, means that malware might be installed on a mobile device or a computer or even in the internal computer of a car.
In my view that's a significant change. As I said, I've done my best to understand the technology behind it, but those who know better than I have suggested that this means there is the potential for the surreptitious installation of malware by police.
1 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
Ms. Zwibel, you're aware that there is presently a piece of legislation before the Senate, Bill S-4, Digital Privacy Act. I think it's been admitted by the minister that there is a link between it and Bill C-13, yet both the minister and his officials were either reticent or outright refused to discuss it.
Why is the link between these two pieces of legislation important?
1 p.m.
Director, Fundamental Freedoms Program, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
The provision in Bill S-4 that has the most relevant link to Bill C-13 is a provision that expands the exceptions in PIPEDA, which I mentioned earlier.
Right now there's an exception, so that a company does not have to seek an individual's consent before disclosing their information to law enforcement or government agencies in certain circumstances. This would expand that to include other organizations that might be requesting information where there's an allegation of breach of contract, for example, copyright claims, and things of that nature.
Really, the problem is that it puts the holder of the information, a private corporation, in the seat of an arbitrator of a contractual dispute or a law enforcement issue, and those are the things that should be done with judicial oversight.
The immunity provision in Bill C-13 obviously plays a big role. In our view. If the provision in Bill S-4 passes, there is an incentive for companies to hand over more information both to law enforcement and to others requesting information. We think the incentive should be going the other way.
1 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace
Thank you very much for those questions and answers.
I want to thank our panel for being here today.
Just so that the committee knows, we have invited the Privacy Commissioner. He just confirmed that he will be here on Tuesday for the first hour. Then we'll be going clause by clause. I know that the Liberal Party has already submitted a few amendments. Please provide the amendments by tomorrow noon, if possible, so that we can look at those and get ready for the clause-by-clause consideration starting next Tuesday afternoon.
We will have one more meeting on this and then we'll be proceeding....Thank you very much for your patience and for being here with us today.
With that, we're adjourned.