Evidence of meeting #28 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 information.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:05 p.m.
Director, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
Well, not for us. We still work under the CSIS Act, so for what we do, the definitions are in section 2 of the CSIS Act.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Where information is shared, though. I should specify where information is shared is now subject to SCISA, which is a broader definition. My point is, if we talk about information sharing, would you have any concerns with information sharing being limited to “threats to the security of Canada”, the definition in the CSIS Act?
5:05 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Let me take a stab at this because we have to be careful about “would we have any concerns”. There is the old maxim that silence deems consent. We have to be careful about that.
We have to remember that SCISA covers more than the service. It covers 17 departments and agencies, many of which don't have any definition at all. I think the rationale for the definitions in place is, in fact, to provide guidance to other departments and agencies that are operating in a completely different context from the service.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
I'm out of time. Would you follow up in writing if you have specific concerns with the difference in definition and if the sharing of information was actually limited to “threats to the security of Canada” as defined in the CSIS Act?
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses.
Mr. Coulombe, the government assures us that, when it comes to immigration and the processing of refugees, CSIS conducts security checks on potential newcomers to Canada. Is that correct?
5:05 p.m.
Director, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
We are responsible for the national security component, but there are other aspects.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
The RCMP handles those, does it not?
5:05 p.m.
Commr Bob Paulson
Sorry, I didn't understand your question.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
The government has told us that, when it comes to immigration and the processing of refugees, security checks are conducted. Mr. Coulombe said that his service did a portion of that work, and I imagine the RCMP does the other portion. Is that correct?
5:05 p.m.
Commr Bob Paulson
Yes, we have a role in the security checks carried out.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
In your role, do you go as far as checking social media? Which technology platforms can you look at without violating people's privacy? What's the balance there?
5:05 p.m.
Commr Bob Paulson
For us, we do a series of things. On immigration files, we will do our police holdings, but it's quite clear that, if people are seeking to come to this country, it's very unlikely that they have much of a history in this country in terms of the traditional criminal indices checks, but we do our indices checks. We check fingerprints. We check other things. We check open-source material. The intrusion on privacy isn't a huge consideration, given that we're doing these indices checks that are governed according to existing statutes.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Following the events that occurred in San Bernardino, California, U.S. homeland security officers told ABC that they weren't permitted to check social networks for information on people because of privacy laws.
Is that the same in Canada?
5:05 p.m.
Commr Bob Paulson
It's not my experience.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
You're allowed, then. You can use social media.
5:05 p.m.
Commr Bob Paulson
Yes, we do. Not to overstate it, but we do what we refer to as open-source checks. We'll check the Internet for available information, which will give us some indication, like we do for applicants to the RCMP and for security clearances in support of the broader government efforts to understand who we're dealing with.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Social networks don't pose a privacy issue, then.
What's the line there?
5:10 p.m.
Commr Bob Paulson
I don't know that there is a clear line. For people who use social media, we don't do any sort of search and seizure. We're looking at records that are in the public domain; therefore, if we find that we have to do some searching, like a traditional search pursuant to how searches are generally understood, we would get a search warrant. But it's Facebook, Google, and those kinds of things.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Has the passage of Bill C-51 had an impact on the tools in your arsenal to conduct more in-depth investigations of certain individuals, either giving you more such tools or enhancing them?
5:10 p.m.
Commr Bob Paulson
No, not really. It didn't have any impact.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
As part of the committee's study, we have to consider the technology side of things. We talked about it earlier. The minister indicated that, in the technological realm, some threats were detectable in certain cases, but same but not in others. He mentioned the “going dark” phenomenon, where activities fall completely under the radar and therefore can't be detected. For that matter, I don't even know how he knows about them, since they are under the radar, but I imagine you have tools that tell you they're out there.
Can you discuss the potential technological threats that hackers or various groups could use to target Canada or Canadians?
5:10 p.m.
Commr Bob Paulson
Thank you for the question.
I'll start the answer off, and then my colleague can round it out.
This is the single most important issue that we have, certainly from the police, and I know that I speak for my colleague when we talk about how we're going forward to deal with encryption, and going dark, and managing things on the Internet. It is, as I said, the single greatest impediment to our effective investigations as we proceed with managing the terrorist threat.
