Mr. Speaker, Bill C-54 seeks to promote electronic commerce, while protecting personal information, so that consumers can engage in electronic commerce with confidence.
For the benefit of this House, let me first explain in general, easy to understand terms what this legislation is all about. When we talk about electronic commerce, what exactly are we talking about?
We are talking about making purchases or transactions—bank transactions, transactions with suppliers, with manufacturers, with clients—electronically. These types of transactions have been in existence for quite some time. Telecommunications have been with us for thirty years or so. They have been relatively well structured in terms of standards for 25 years.
As for electronic data interchange, it has been governed by international standards for more than 10 years. In fact, electronic data interchange is used relatively often by many businesses.
For the past ten years or so, large businesses have been using it in their dealings with suppliers. That means that a supplier does not send a written bill to his client, but rather an electronic bill that is received on the client's computer, allowing the client to authorize payment after verifying that the goods or services have actually been delivered.
What is happening today is an acceleration, and I was going to say a democratization of this process. Electronic data interchange is not longer restricted to large corporations and government. It is now accessible to the average person through, among other means, the Internet.
So far so good. However, if I give my credit card number when I make such a transaction, I want to be sure that this number will not be used for other purposes than those for which I wrote it on the electronic form.
I want to be sure that somebody will not use my credit card number to travel around the world. Of course, I would only find out about it when receiving my statement at the end of the month. It would be terrible.
True, particularly well equipped hackers might be able to get at that information. But we have the tools to make it very difficult for them. One should not generalize and panic.
We have to recognize that in everyday life, you and I and a lot of other people are using their credit cards in a lot of establishments, restaurants, clothing stores, to subscribe to a magazine. Our credit card number is handled by strangers.
When I go to the restaurant and I pay with my credit card, the waiter takes it away for a while to pass it through a mechanical device or a magnetic tape reader to charge the check on my account at my credit card provider. During those few minutes, he or she could take note of my number to use it improperly.
However, in 99.99% of the people are honest and that kind of fraudulent use of credit card simply does not happen. But it is true that there are fraudulent uses of credit cards.