Information & Ethics committee  I thought it was interesting, because it showed that even TBS agreed with our analysis that accountability for privacy needed to be strengthened in the government.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  No. In fact they were selected by the Office of the Auditor General, who was undertaking an audit for reasons of her own. Her office approached my office and said that given that these particular agencies also have a lot of personal information on Canadians, we might like to do a

Information & Ethics committee  Absolutely.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. I think training is an overlooked key to improving personal information protection. Because a lot of this comes out of the use of technology, I think we tend to use and look for new technology to solve the problem, and of course there's always someone who comes and tells us

Information & Ethics committee  My understanding is that this was it. That was what the Auditor General approached us with. I don't know how her office functions in terms of the audit. Certainly, from my office, we audit various government agencies every year on an ongoing basis. Those are audits we do alone as

Information & Ethics committee  Treasury Board has our recommendations. We are waiting for the results of what is called a policy suite renewal, and we encourage Treasury Board to move on that. That's the continuous updating of privacy management guidelines for departments. Certainly if the government intereste

Information & Ethics committee  We've worked together with Treasury Board in recent years. That's the specific role of the Assistant Privacy Commissioner. Under the act, we cannot stand in for the Treasury Board. I could draw your attention to the fact that, year after year, we say that training for Canadian pu

Information & Ethics committee  A number of critics of my office and of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act have said before this committee that they thought the commissioner's office should be a tribunal, as in Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia. I've answered that the present mo

Information & Ethics committee  It is a very large number. Of the many challenges that my office has dealt with in the last few years, this is the last very serious challenge that is before us. It's a challenge of great magnitude. There's a similar backlog in PIPEDA.

Information & Ethics committee  Pardon me?

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. Right now, over half of them are over a year old.

Information & Ethics committee  Unfortunately, the backlog is kind of like an iceberg growing. It grows very slowly, but it grows imperceptibly over years, and once you have it, it's hard to get rid of. The backlog grew over the last few years when there were great administrative challenges at the Office of th

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you.

Information & Ethics committee  Standards, with respect to privacy and security issues, are the domain of the Treasury Board, which makes the rules. Our role is as a commentator: we file complaints, we conduct audits. From time to time, we state that there are problems in the management of personal information,