Information & Ethics committee  It's pretty clear that—

Information & Ethics committee  It's pretty clear that that type of use is unacceptable, even under the current privacy legislation. It's unacceptable. Penalties would be the answer in this case. Deterring that kind of behaviour would require significant penalties, and neither the current act nor Bill C-11 sets out such penalties.

Information & Ethics committee  The government certainly cited the desirability of Canada maintaining adequacy status in the EU as one impetus for Bill C-11. Indeed, maintaining adequacy is important. It allows data flows between Canada and the EU without specific mechanisms, like special contracts and the like.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  Indeed, that's another relationship that's very important. I think we have a good relationship with the Competition Bureau. Again, as I said earlier, in the virtual world as in the physical world, it's normal to have a number of regulatory agencies that share different activities from different perspectives.

Information & Ethics committee  We've seen an example of this with Clearview AI. To socialize with friends and family, users innocently use social media with no idea that the information they provide, including their photos, may be collated by a company like Clearview AI, which uses the data for so-called police investigations or, as mentioned, to conduct private investigations of individuals.

Information & Ethics committee  I think very significant amendments to Bill C-11 should be made to adequately protect privacy.

Information & Ethics committee  My report will address that theme generally. I'll leave it at that.

Information & Ethics committee  The Clearview AI investigation is complete. The investigation that is coming to a close, and is not quite finished yet, is about the RCMP and its use of Clearview AI technology. We should be able to release that report in the next few weeks.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, that's right.

Information & Ethics committee  It depends on the country. In Europe and elsewhere, such as in some Latin American countries, Japan, and, if I am not mistaken, South Korea, the approach we suggest exists, which is to have the protective provisions enforced within a human rights framework. Then there are considerable penalties so that consumers can have confidence that their data is being handled with respect for their privacy.

Information & Ethics committee  It's very hard to understand. There need to be significant penalties, a rights-based approach, and more flexibility in how data is used. This must go hand in hand with greater corporate accountability. Among other things, this means that the regulatory agency can, not arbitrarily, but by being focused on its assessment of the environment, do proactive audits and not wait until there is a privacy breach.

Information & Ethics committee  Two main mechanisms are relevant to Clearview's situation under CPPA. The first one is the purpose clause—proposed section 5—of the CPPA, which confirms the PIPEDA's approach to balance commercial interests with privacy considerations. That clause does not say that privacy is a human right.

Information & Ethics committee  If the committee requests it, I will be more than happy to do so.

Information & Ethics committee  It is the same jurisdictional divide as for other technologies. There's a federal private sector law that governs the private sector when the provinces have not legislated. Obviously, the provinces would legislate the conditions under which their own officials would use facial recognition, so the same jurisdictional issues would arise here as with other technologies.