Evidence of meeting #155 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.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Gregory Smolynec  Deputy Commissioner, Policy and Promotion Sector, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Leslie Fournier-Dupelle  Strategic Policy and Research Analyst, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Glenn Foster  Chief Information Security Officer, Toronto Dominion Bank

5:20 p.m.

Chief Information Security Officer, Toronto Dominion Bank

Glenn Foster

Again, I'm the technical security person for data and systems. I'd have to follow up with our product folks and product people.

5:20 p.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

Fair enough.

When I travel around the world, for example, and I use my credit card or my debit card in different places, does TD track where and what I'm doing with it for any purpose other than [Inaudible-Editor] the transaction?

5:20 p.m.

Chief Information Security Officer, Toronto Dominion Bank

Glenn Foster

No, only for fraud purposes.

5:20 p.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

Fraud purposes. There are no marketing purposes whatsoever at any stage of that?

5:25 p.m.

Chief Information Security Officer, Toronto Dominion Bank

Glenn Foster

Your transaction data and the point of sale transaction is what ends up within the systems within TD. Is that your question?

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

Let's say I go to the bank across the street here, and then I go to Saskatoon and then I go to Taipei. You now know that I'm travelling and you know roughly what I'm buying. Is that data used for anything other than security tracking?

5:25 p.m.

Chief Information Security Officer, Toronto Dominion Bank

Glenn Foster

Again, I'd have to defer to the product folks who do that type of target marketing.

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

Are passwords obsolete?

5:25 p.m.

Chief Information Security Officer, Toronto Dominion Bank

Glenn Foster

In my professional opinion they still have some value—that's “something you know”—but the value of that credential is dramatically decreasing year over year.

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

What is the alternative?

5:25 p.m.

Chief Information Security Officer, Toronto Dominion Bank

Glenn Foster

The alternative is various forms of biometrics. You still want some form of something you know, or something you have, along with the biometrics themselves. That's really the “something you are” in the scheme they refer to as “multifactor authentication”.

I think if you look at the thumbprint readers today and at some of the facial recognition technologies in the marketplace, they're becoming far more robust. In most cases they're a more powerful authenticator than a customer's username and password.

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

That's fair. If your biometrics are compromised, is there anything you can do?

5:25 p.m.

Chief Information Security Officer, Toronto Dominion Bank

Glenn Foster

We bind a biometric to a user, so we can then suspend that and re-enrol the user. We don't retain your entire.... With a thumbprint, for example, none of these devices actually retain your entire thumbprint. They all have their own proprietary algorithm of points that they take, and they actually retain that data only. Schemes vary from device to device.

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

I have a....

5:25 p.m.

Chief Information Security Officer, Toronto Dominion Bank

Glenn Foster

Your thumb is safe.

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

The thumb has to have temperature to it, too. It has to have blood flowing, so that's another whole issue.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB

You just hold it in your hand for a while.

5:25 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC

You've thought about this.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB

Put it in the microwave.

5:25 p.m.

Some hon. members

Oh, oh!

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

On a slightly lighter note, in Monday's meeting the topic of Y2K came up briefly—I don't remember why—and I didn't have a chance to come back to it. Is TD Y2K38-ready?

5:25 p.m.

Chief Information Security Officer, Toronto Dominion Bank

Glenn Foster

Is TD Y2K38-ready?

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

If we have the Y2K38 bug.

5:25 p.m.

Chief Information Security Officer, Toronto Dominion Bank

Glenn Foster

We haven't performed a robust assessment on that yet.

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

Do you have anything left with 32-bit?