Information & Ethics committee  We've included a definition, but we're going to go further and provide language that we provide to other bodies like this.

Information & Ethics committee  I would respectfully defer again. I have a reaction as a citizen. I'm here on behalf of the information destruction industry in that regard, so I would say as long as they properly destroy it at the end of its life, we're very happy, but—

Information & Ethics committee  We have supplied such wording in both the United States and in the European Union when we were asked for it. We have not prepared that for Canada at this point, but it would be very easy to do.

Information & Ethics committee  Number two, did PIPEDA make a difference in the behaviour of organizations with regard to disposal? Is that it?

Information & Ethics committee  Obviously there are still legal retention requirements. Of course you want to keep it around for its useful life as well, if there's some access to it. Certainly it is prudent records management policy, and continues to be prudent, to purge records that are no longer needed, that have reached the end of their retention period, and to do that on a regular basis to avoid the appearance of suspicious destruction.

Information & Ethics committee  Alberta's Personal Information Protection Act is a bit clearer than PIPEDA is, but not much. Across the board, even going back to 1990 with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, when it was passed at that time, it had a clearer definition or direction as far as what destruction is and that personal information shall be destroyed when it is discarded, but no definitions of what destruction is, and destruction could be interpreted as many things.

Information & Ethics committee  Consider it done.

Information & Ethics committee  We're not saying that. There have been incidents. We are asking for some consideration and credibility here, because we are representing our interests to some extent in being here, asking for this. I can't believe it's too often that an industry comes to you asking for more regulation that is actually going to affect it, and it will affect our members.

Information & Ethics committee  Those were the medical records that were spread around the streets.

Information & Ethics committee  Without getting into each individual case, I can tell you that each of them was handled at the provincial level through the provincial privacy and information commissioners; investigations were conducted, and results are either pending or have been produced in all of these cases.

Information & Ethics committee  They were in Ontario. The movie set incident happened in Toronto.

Information & Ethics committee  I would say that while there is direction provided already, as you acknowledged, we are asking, just as you've said, for a clearer direction saying specifically that it must be destroyed when it's discarded and describing what that destruction is, along with the other recommendations.

Information & Ethics committee  It worked very effectively.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you for the question. First of all, on notification, from our comments, NAID Canada's position would clearly be that notification is not only important as a protection for the individual whose information may have been breached, but I think we all know that as much as teeth or enforcement can be put into this, it may be one of the most serious deterrents to casually treating the information as well.

Information & Ethics committee  If I may, it has generally been approached through safe harbour mechanisms that are negotiated even within...perhaps not the U.S., but within the organization. Obviously if the U.S. were to have a law that trumped that or exempted that safe harbour agreement, that would be an issue as well.