Information & Ethics committee  I know that my officials have good working relations with the RCMP, and I look forward to having the same with Commissioner Lucki and the institution. What I am saying is there's a good opportunity to conduct a PIA to provide information. We're available to work with the RCMP to provide advice on these tools.

Information & Ethics committee  This goes to when I talk about privacy not being an obstacle to the public interest but building on each other. That's very important. There may well be information that cannot and should not be made public. If we're talking about criminal investigative techniques, there's probably a good potential that that would apply in this instance.

Information & Ethics committee  I think that's a very good way of formulating it. I would agree with that. Privacy is a fundamental right. It needs to support the public interest. One of the ways of doing that, while generating trust, is to have PIAs at the front end and a good process for reviewing them.

Information & Ethics committee  I think that there have been lots of good questions and exchanges, and I don't have anything to add top of mind, but we will be following up with the committee with the specific wording of our recommendation for the legislation.

Information & Ethics committee  We're working very closely with our international counterparts and seeing how we can work together, put forward similar principles and deal with these issues that, in many regards, know no borders. That's part of what we do in our international outreach and sharing of information.

Information & Ethics committee  We have great working collaborations with the provincial counterparts. This is my first month, but I was told that there are monthly calls and regular discussions and exchanges. We do keep a close relationship to work with each other and to make sure that our respective legislation evolves in the right way.

Information & Ethics committee  Absolutely. We have very close collaboration. I have already had exchanges with my counterparts since the start of my term on June 27. We're looking at the GDPR. We're looking at developments in the U.S. and developments in the U.K. We're facing similar challenges, and there are different approaches that are adopted.

Information & Ethics committee  At this point my office does need more resources. We've made a request for more resources already and we're awaiting the response on that. We are evaluating what we will need for Bill C-27 and beyond.

Information & Ethics committee  I think that's an important point. When I talk about privacy as an accelerator of the trust Canadians have in their institutions, I mean that. It's important that Canadians are reassured about the processes that exist and about their institutions and what their institutions are doing.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, we have a very strong technical team. Assessing technologies is part of what we do. We make sure we keep up with the latest technologies and have cutting-edge expertise.

Information & Ethics committee  We're certainly looking at the resources situation very carefully. We have had the Privacy Act extension order that extended the ambit of the Privacy Act. We've made a request for more resources based on that. We're waiting for the answer to that request. We're also looking at Bill C-27.

Information & Ethics committee  We need to make sure, whoever the decision-maker is, whether it's the judiciary, my office or departments, that they have the necessary understanding of the technology that's at play. We need to understand the privacy impacts. We need to understand the information at play, and we need to understand what the capabilities are and if those change the nature of the discussion of metadata.

Information & Ethics committee  I will wait to get the briefing on those specific tools to see all of the capabilities they have, but I think that we need to make sure that the legislation, when it's amended, is done in a way that it can keep up with technology. We can't amend legislation as quickly as technology evolves, so how do we make sure that the legislation is flexible enough to keep up with this technology that's going to be evolving?

Information & Ethics committee  Well, I think what's important is that the tools are looked at in terms of their impact, their purpose and the importance of the public interest at play. It's not a zero-sum game, and it's that not you achieve the public interest by sacrificing privacy. You achieve both. However, there certainly is an argument to be made to have some requirements for authorization in the Criminal Code, approved by Parliament, that provide some specific conditions and information about the types of situations where it can be used.

Information & Ethics committee  I think this is something the RCMP will be very well placed to talk about in terms of the details, but I can say that there is a requirement for judicial authorization and there are criteria for obtaining this judicial authorization. There are some specific time periods for the duration.