Information & Ethics committee  No, we would never jeopardize the protection of personal information nor our relationship with Parliament. If we could have the possibility of going to Parliament whenever we wanted to, if for example we had done some kind of audit that we thought you should know about, we coul

Information & Ethics committee  That's interesting that you quote the Minister of Justice as saying that this power's already there, because in fact my office noted that the Minister of Justice used this recommendation as an example that some of the proposed changes we suggest may be possible. So I don't know.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, we come to slightly different conclusions, but I will answer your question. The public education mandate is not specifically spelled out in the Privacy Act, again in contradistinction to PIPEDA, a much more modern law. As a consequence of that, I believe that we don't reall

Information & Ethics committee  It's exactly that kind of thing, to have specific reporting powers so we can keep up with the modern media. Maybe Hedy Kirkby can explain the problems with the current Privacy Act.

Information & Ethics committee  The intention certainly is not to go behind Parliament. The intention is to try to tailor the language of the 1983 Privacy Act to the way with which the public is used to being communicated to in 2009-10. How do you get a message about the protection of personal information to Ca

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, but if I may say so, the possibility of going to Federal Court in our experience usually focuses both parties on seeking a settlement.

Information & Ethics committee  That's an interesting question, because under the directives there is supposed to be a privacy impact assessment for every program now. So theoretically the money is in the departments. So I don't see that a case has to be made. Departments are supposed to follow directives to

Information & Ethics committee  This wouldn't affect provincial agencies; it would just be federal agencies. They're supposed to be doing this. I'm just making the point that they're not doing it; that's why I would like you to put it into law. But my understanding is that they've already been granted the resou

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, both of them are cases of what I was discussing with the previous honourable member; that is, they are in fact policies. Obviously the Government of Canada has a security policy and Treasury Board has breach notification guidelines. Again, we don't hear much about problems w

Information & Ethics committee  Ye. You will notice I haven't asked for order-making power, because that would not be a quick fix, to say the least. It would involve looking at the whole structure of my office. In fact, in the context of PIPEDA, I am commissioning work by some scholars to look at the things tha

Information & Ethics committee  It certainly is, and we're looking at that, yes.

Information & Ethics committee  I believe the current test is simply the consistent use once the information is gathered. I think it's very important for the Privacy Act to mirror not only PIPEDA but much provincial legislation, in that there's a test. You can't just collect anything and then say you'll collect

Information & Ethics committee  I'll come back to my remarks about policy. We think, having observed for over 25 years, if you look at the series of annual reports done by me and previous privacy commissioners, the things that are merely put in policy are often not taken seriously enough. Perhaps it didn't have

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. Perhaps I could direct the committee to look at the history of my office's experience under PIPEDA, where we have slightly more powers to deal in a more summary fashion than we do under the Privacy Act, and the relationship between those powers and the number of complainants

Information & Ethics committee  If I look at it as 52, I read only three are well founded, two are well founded and resolved, and all the others are resolved, settled, not well founded, or discontinued.