Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to talk again about a very important issue. It is a follow up to a question that I asked on December 4, 2007, in the House of Commons related to privacy and passports.
I had asked about the security breach at Passport Canada's offices. In fact, it almost wished it had a security breach. It allowed passport information to be provided to the public without being hacked into. A simple keystroke by an Ontario man led to the access of information of Canadians, information related to their social insurance numbers, their driver's licences, their addresses, people they knew and their information and their passport information, information important for the security and vetting of that passport. We know the United States, for example, will be requiring more Canadians to have passports and looking at the security of it.
What happened? I guess the government procured a computer program with a major flaw and that flaw has subsequently led to passport information being made available and not only in Canada. This was on the worldwide web. People had the opportunity to view the personal and private information of Canadians.
My question for the government was very straightforward. Had it ensured that the breach was stopped? Would it deal with the company that created the program? Would it apologize to Canadians for handling their personal information in such a manner? We can only assume that the information of all Canadians in the passport system at that time was vulnerable. Those are important steps.
We have seen personal information and privacy issues emerge in other countries. They have apologized and have been accountable.
Apparently the government, which is supposed to be tough on crime and security and all those different things, does not feel it has any onus or responsibility when it has the trust of people's sensitive information. The information on the web could have been used to take out a mortgage in somebody else's name. The government could have at least apologized. More important, it could have made sure that everybody affected by the problem was notified.
Instead, I received a response from the minister at that time, which was interesting. He talked about communicating with the department that morning, but the incident had taken place the week before. There was no apparent need, or it was a lack or interest or he was not informed. We do not know which it was, but the situation had festered over a period of time and the minister apparently indicated that in his response to me.
It is important to talk about some of the things that are happening with regard to privacy and passports. Mr. Jamie Laning of Huntsville tried a couple different keystrokes on his computer. He stated:
I'm just curious about these things so I tried it, and boom, there was somebody else's name and somebody else's data.
Another Canadian's information popped up on the screen, which included home and business numbers, federal ID card numbers and firearms licence numbers, which should interest the government.
It is important to note that the government, on November 21, 2007, introduced legislation to make it illegal to obtain this information, but it has not brought the bill forward. At the same time, it was making noise about having more protection for Canadians against identity theft. This is becoming a rampant problem in our country.
I would like to provide the government this opportunity to apologize to Canadians.