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.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
The subscriber information for an IP address, for example.
Head of Policy Management, Facebook Inc.
We do provide non-content-based information, such as IP addresses, when we get legally sufficient requests from government. Beyond that, I'm not sure I can—
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
That is covered in your agreement and in the policies that people agree to when they sign on to Facebook?
Head of Policy Management, Facebook Inc.
Absolutely, it's very transparent—
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
In your opinion, what does the IP address information disclose? Is it just the name and address of the person sending that transmission or is there other information?
Head of Policy Management, Facebook Inc.
We would provide the IP address. How that is used or—
Conservative
Head of Policy Management, Facebook Inc.
I wouldn't have that information.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace
No problem. Thank you very much for those questions and thanks for those answers.
Our final questioner is Mr. Casey from the Liberal Party.
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Zwibel, you were asked a question about the relationship between section 25 of the Criminal Code and Bill C-13. You started to rifle through your papers to get an answer and you weren't afforded an opportunity to answer the question. This is your opportunity.
Director, Fundamental Freedoms Program, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Thank you.
Section 25 says that if you're required or authorized by law to do something, and you act on reasonable grounds, you're justified in doing that. It's basically a justification defence. It's a little bit different from the blanket civil and criminal immunity that's being proposed in Bill C-13. The provision in Bill C-13 doesn't require the reasonableness, so I think there's an important distinction. I think section 25 is, with respect, a bit of a red herring.
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
I think so, too. Thank you.
Mr. Beckerman, to your knowledge, has your association or any of its members been consulted in the process of developing this legislation?
President, The Internet Association
Not to my knowledge for the association. I can't speak to all of the individual companies or if they've been consulted on this legislation.
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
Is an immunity against civil and criminal proceedings for voluntarily disclosing information to law authorities in Canada something that your association, or any of its members, was asking for?
President, The Internet Association
As I mentioned, I can't speak to individual conversations that our companies may have had with the committee when drafting this legislation. To my knowledge, at the association, we haven't been involved in the drafting of the legislation.
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
Does your association count among its members telecommunications companies?
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
This question is for Ms. Bickert, and also for you, Mr. Beckerman.
Each of you talked at some length about transparency reports. I don't know whether you're aware that it's been very difficult to get the type of information, which you voluntarily disclose, from telecommunications companies. I'm talking about the non-consensual distribution of customer information without a warrant.
What can telecommunications companies, and perhaps the government, learn from your practices with respect to these transparency reports?
Conservative
Head of Policy Management, Facebook Inc.
Trust is really the cornerstone of our business. The simple truth is that if people don't trust Facebook, they're not going to use it. For that reason we make clear, both through our policies and our practices, that transparency is paramount to us. That's why we put in place the procedures that we have. That includes not only outlining how data is secured and how it could be provided in response to a lawful government request, but also voluntarily providing transparency reports so that people can understand the scope of the way governments are seeking access to data.
President, The Internet Association
Thank you.
I can't speak for telecommunications providers. I can just say that for our industry, transparency and user trust are paramount. Our sites are only as good as the users who interact with them. In our industry, competition is everywhere and competition is really just a click away on the Internet, which our companies are very mindful of. So transparency and accountability to users is incredibly important and it's fundamental to the industry.
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
If the government agreed with you, there would be no reason they couldn't legislate it, or even incorporate it into this bill. I expect you're not a big fan of having government legislate what your practices are, but it seems to me that what each of you is doing represents a best practice that could possibly be legislated.
Would you care to comment on that?
President, The Internet Association
As I mentioned in my testimony, transparency is incredibly important, particularly the reports that many of our companies do in the aggregate on requests for data from governments. We do have some concerns with the legislation that it could block a number of these transparency reports that we find very important.