Evidence of meeting #38 for Status of Women in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was content.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Senior Policy Analyst, Google Canada
With regard to revenge porn, once we get a flag from a user that says their image has been shared without their consent, we take it down, but we also provide them instructions on how to contact a webmaster to get it taken off the Internet.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Okay. Thank you very much.
Shifting gears a bit, obviously the work that you guys are doing and that's ongoing on the Internet these days is incredibly innovative. There are huge economic and social benefits to having well-organized information online. I fear sometimes that when we get into the business of regulating the Internet one way or another, we're going to have unintended negative consequences from what we try to do, no matter how well-intentioned it might be.
Are there certain things we should be avoiding when we're piecing together recommendations for the government, whether it's increased surveillance or it's prescribing certain kinds of content filters or whatever it might be?
Senior Policy Analyst, Google Canada
I think that the most important thing is to be as specific as possible, because when you come out with.... Using the example of no nudity on the Internet, the examples that I just gave you about health education or artistic nudity or something like that, we would be limiting ourselves to all of that content.
In developing those regulations, I think it's important to be as specific as possible.
Liberal
Senior Counsel, Human and Civil Rights, Google
I affirm what Lauren has said, that it is important, as you will see that in the way we've developed our policies, to be very narrowly tailored so we have that thoughtful balance between innovation, free expression, and safety.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
That's excellent.
We spent a bit of time talking about digital literacy, and I think it was you, Ms. Skelly, who put it in terms of building a more informed digital citizen, or something to that effect, which sounds great.
We heard similar testimony from other groups, such as MediaSmarts. I think this is going to be an essential piece of our study. I hope it is.
I'm curious, though. What's in it for Google? What interest do you have, other than being good people who care in promoting an informed digital community?
Senior Policy Analyst, Google Canada
I think in developing digital skills, we have a talent angle to this as well. We need to hire a lot of people to do the work we do. Currently there is a talent shortage of people with these skills. That would be our self-interested perspective, but I will say that we have a strong priority in keeping everybody safe online and working with all our partners to do so.
Senior Counsel, Human and Civil Rights, Google
It's also our commitment to democracy. We want the ideals of democracy and inclusion and diversity to be part of how individuals engage online. This is also about how we build our civil society and about how individuals, our digital citizens, inform what kind of civil society we are.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
In terms of what we might recommend instead of what we should avoid, how can we best make recommendations to the government through this study to encourage digital literacy among the general public, and specifically digital literacy that will help protect young women and girls from cyberviolence or harassment of any kind?
Senior Policy Analyst, Google Canada
I think it starts in the schools. Organizations like MediaSmarts, people who are doing things on the coding and programming skills side, are wonderful organizations and very important, but it does have to start in the classroom. I think it starts with curriculum. I understand obviously that curriculum is not your jurisdiction, but anything you can do to promote that at a very early age I think is very important.
Senior Counsel, Human and Civil Rights, Google
I think it's important to talk about it also from the place of power. In the U.S. we have Black Girls Code and Girls Who Code. That's important, because it's also about making sure that our girls have not just the literacy but the actual skills to not only download but also to be able to upload apps. We want them to be a part of how we design our products and our online lives. It's literacy, but it's also about making sure that we're thoughtful of how we are ensuring that girls and girls of colour are part of being the architects and not just the recipients.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
In your view, knowing that the federal government has limited ability to interfere with provincial jurisdiction on education, is supporting community organizations that are getting into the schools or doing community work the best way to go? Will that ensure that we're targeting groups that potentially help women who are facing intersecting grounds of discrimination to become engaged with the content creation process and, as users, learn more about how to protect themselves?
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
I only have 30 seconds left. I think it would be hard to accomplish much more, so I'll just say thank you very much. That was very informative.
Conservative
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Thank you very much for coming out today. I have a couple of questions.
One of the things you mentioned during your presentation was Applejacks digital literacy. Can you give me some more information on that, looking at things like the take-up? Where is this currently being done? What age group are you targeting? Does it start at kindergarten? Can you give me more information? I assume it's in the United States, but do we have it happening here in Canada? What states are currently taking part in it?
Senior Counsel, Human and Civil Rights, Google
I will take responsibility for making sure that the folks who run Applejacks in our office are connected to you and can give you a more detailed explanation of the work they do.
I understand that we are in middle schools, and I understand that it is about being able to be expansive in how we are interacting with both the students and the teachers. I do not run that program, but I'm more than happy to make sure that a more exhaustive description of that program is provided to you.
Conservative
Senior Policy Analyst, Google Canada
Yes, there are a lot of self-directed portions of Applejacks that we have made open source. They are in our Google Safety Center, if you google it. I think it has a 45-minute click-through that you can do as a parent with your child.
Applejacks is something we would obviously love to bring to Canada. We haven't had the scale yet to do so, but we have been looking into it.
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Excellent.
You talked about law, and law enforcement has come up a lot. When you're taking crimes like this to the law enforcement agencies, of course, there isn't an understanding of it.
What would you recommend for programming? Is there an initiative that you could see Google taking up, or are we looking at developing a program and originating it from, once again, a variety of different subusers?
Senior Counsel, Human and Civil Rights, Google
In the U.S. we have partnered with the National Network to End Domestic Violence. They have been the lead in doing a lot of this work in outreach to women around how to protect themselves online and in training law enforcement in understanding this as a new form of violence against women and girls.
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Finally, I want to talk about profiles.
Some computers will have multiple profiles, while some will just have a family profile. In my family, we use “Vecchios”. In a situation like this, if you have singular profiles, is it going to be the computer itself that sends you into those algorithms, or is it going to be the profiler's use that will send you into those algorithms? For instance, if I'm using the computer and I'm doing research, will the research I have come up when my 13-year-old asks the same questions? Will he be able to get basically the same line if we put in the same codes, because of the different use that we have?
What would you say on the profiles?
Senior Policy Analyst, Google Canada
I can speak to that.
On a Chrome browser, we have something called “managed users”. You can basically create a different user for each member of your family and create settings based on that person's age. You can choose level of appropriateness. You can turn on safety settings for them and block certain sites. You can tailor content. However, if you're just using the Vecchio profile, then it assumes that you're one person.
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Okay. That's not a problem.
Finally, when we're looking at other governments and countries, have you seen any laws or regulations that would be good for us to look at, that might help us make more informed choices for what we should do here in Canada?
Senior Counsel, Human and Civil Rights, Google
I'll give you the example of what played out in my personal situation.
I was fortunate to be cyberstalked in D.C. as opposed to Virginia, because at the time Virginia did not contemplate cyberstalking as a form of stalking, whereas D.C. did. I think the legal recognition of cyberviolence, cyberstalking, cyberharassment as forms of stalking and harassing is legally important.
