Information & Ethics committee  I would distinguish between two legal notions. You're referring to information that is on the net and under public settings, say, on social media. PIPEDA has a very restricted definition of what is publicly available and would not, per se, authorize the use and disclosure of information except if it fit the very narrow definition of “publicly available”, and in your example, it would not.

Information & Ethics committee  In Europe, under the new regulation that will come into force in 2018, I believe the maximum will be 4% of the global revenue of a company.

Information & Ethics committee  It is extremely significant.

Information & Ethics committee  By function of the revenue of the company, the maximum, 4% of global revenue, means a small company will pay a smaller amount.

Information & Ethics committee  Here, I think we would take the difference in size into consideration in terms of our expectations of the kind of security a company would require.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. In the U.S., I don't know the maximum—perhaps one of my colleagues can say—but there are fines in the millions of dollars.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, it should be a concern, although we are looking at this issue and we haven't concluded yet what the net impact of this new executive order will be.

Information & Ethics committee  Perhaps I could just add that, on the constitutional question from a Canadian perspective of freedom of expression and whether a right to be forgotten would contravene the charter, I think at the end of the day it's going to be a question of balance, balancing the right to privacy of individuals, which may include some form of a right to be forgotten, against the constitutionally protected freedom of expression.

Information & Ethics committee  In the U.S., there is a statute—the acronym is COPPA, I believe—that prohibits the collection of information about children under 13. In Canada, we don't have that kind of legislation for a number of reasons. I think one is the fact that PIPEDA is framed in terms of general principles, one of them being consent.

Information & Ethics committee  There is certainly a level of protection for children. It doesn't reach the level of an absolute prohibition, but there is a level of protection. So, yes, I'm comfortable that it exists.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you. The first reason I think you should consider giving us stronger enforcement powers is that our reading of the expectations and the will of Canadians is that we should have these powers. We have consulted Canadians regularly over the years, and the percentage of Canadians who say, for instance, that they would be more likely to do business with an organization if the organization were subject to order-making or fines is higher than 70%.

Information & Ethics committee  At the OPC we ourselves have not reached a conclusion on this point. We have issued a discussion paper. We have sought comments by stakeholders, and we are in the process of determining what our position should be. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, some of the submissions we have received are very critical and signal that, in Canada, the constitutional protection of freedom of expression may be slightly different from that in Europe and may lead us to a different outcome from the one in Europe.

Information & Ethics committee  Our first train stop will be the consent paper in mid-2017. After that we will issue a position on reputation, including the right to be forgotten. In all likelihood that will be by the end of this calendar year.