Evidence of meeting #151 for Public Safety and National Security in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was data.
A video is available from Parliament.
Kanata—Carleton, Lib.
You're just saying that you're not an attractive target.
President, Canadian Association of Mutual Insurance Companies
We are less so.
Principal, SkyBridge Strategies
Unless somebody wants to know how many washrooms you have in your basement.... I'm sure somebody would find that very valuable, but....
Kanata—Carleton, Lib.
We'll put the cybersecurity piece of this aside, then, and talk about open banking. It's important not to conflate the two.
The finance department just held some consultations. Were you part of that?
President, Canadian Association of Mutual Insurance Companies
We did not give testimony. We participated in the consultations.
Kanata—Carleton, Lib.
I wish we had received a copy of that. That would have been handy. We would have been better placed to have a real discussion about the challenges of open banking. I've done some research, but only a little.
Your organization, CAMIC, is having a hard time with this open banking. You think there are significant issues with it.
President, Canadian Association of Mutual Insurance Companies
Well, the issue that affects insurance companies.... There is a wall between banks and insurance companies. As you may know, going back to the four pillars, there has been a wall maintained between the banks and the insurance companies. A bank cannot sell insurance from the bank. They can have an organization selling insurance, but it's completely separate from the bank. The bank's data cannot be shared with that organization. The purpose of it is to prevent coercion, if I can put it that way—banks forcing customers to buy their product at the time they're granting a loan. So these two are separated, not to prevent banks from getting into the insurance business, but they have to have separate organizations and not share data between the two.
Through these fintechs, that wall would just disappear. You would have the possibility of a bank sharing data with a fintech, and that fintech could very well share data with a third organization, be it an insurance company or whatever. Therefore, the separation or the wall between the two would just disappear.
Kanata—Carleton, Lib.
I'm having a hard time understanding why CAMIC is opposed to it but the Insurance Brokers Association of Canada is not. You must see there's a piece of this puzzle we're missing.
Principal, SkyBridge Strategies
Madame McCrimmon, CAMIC is not opposed to it. CAMIC is saying that there need to be parameters and a framework that protect the privacy rights and extend the privacy standards of banks and insurance companies to these third parties or fintechs. CAMIC is not opposed to it. The discussion should be guided by some principles, in order for the end result to have this framework in place.
Kanata—Carleton, Lib.
Okay, but wouldn't the insurance brokers feel exactly the same way?
Kanata—Carleton, Lib.
The latest article said that the brokers and the mutuals are split on the tactics, on whether to support open banking or not.
President, Canadian Association of Mutual Insurance Companies
We're not necessarily opposed to open banking. We're saying that there should be parameters surrounding that.
President, Canadian Association of Mutual Insurance Companies
On top of that, there is a wall between the banks and the insurance companies. Under the new system, under open banking, we would like that wall to be maintained.
Kanata—Carleton, Lib.
You obviously have some concerns that the Insurance Brokers Association of Canada doesn't have.
President, Canadian Association of Mutual Insurance Companies
That may be so.
Kanata—Carleton, Lib.
That's the thing. It would be really nice if we could get things in advance—
President, Canadian Association of Mutual Insurance Companies
Absolutely.
Kanata—Carleton, Lib.
—so we can study and have the questions ready for you.
Let's talk about open banking. Do you not think there are ways we could mitigate those risks, or are you just concerned that we're not aware of all the risks?
Principal, SkyBridge Strategies
We believe the open banking concept exposes cyber risk and cyber-hacking to a degree that's a lot larger than the current regime allows or permits. As I said, banks spend a lot of money on privacy standards and even they get hacked, so how about these new entrants, fintechs, that would likely spend very little compared to the banks or the insurance companies? Public policy-makers, such as you, need to keep that in mind when devising public policy on this. That's really the issue we are raising.
Kanata—Carleton, Lib.
Okay.
I liked what you had to say about full and informed consent. How do we improve that? What approaches are available to us?