Information & Ethics committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, committee, for allowing us to come today to talk about issues related to your review of PIPEDA. I don't think we'll be very long in our opening remarks. Our issues are pretty specific. We just really want to raise those for you, and we'll be happy to try to

Information & Ethics committee  It hasn't, to my knowledge.

Information & Ethics committee  It's my understanding that most of the bigger ISPs generally cooperate with law enforcement. According to the Privacy Commissioner, in a letter we received from her, ISPs look at it on a case-by-case basis, so I guess it depends on the circumstances and what the issues are. I'll

Information & Ethics committee  What I was referring to there is in our brief, and again I apologize for not getting it in sooner. There was a case in Toronto where the police were looking to get information. I think it was a homicide investigation. The issue the ISP raised was that the cost of cooperating with

Information & Ethics committee  Ideally we would like to see ISPs take a more active role in ensuring that their services are not being used to facilitate the exploitation of children. That doesn't mean they have to police the Internet; that's unreasonable. But certainly when they become aware of how their serv

Information & Ethics committee  I'm saying they have the discretion to cooperate with law enforcement. When law enforcement makes a request to get the name of a potential suspect--subscriber information, name and address--they have a discretion to cooperate with law enforcement. I think according to the legisl

Information & Ethics committee  Obviously, our interest is Internet service providers because that's an area where children are being exploited by the Internet. Our recommendation is--and I only speak to the area of the Internet because that's the issue we're dealing with, children being exploited--that the leg

Information & Ethics committee  I'm not saying there aren't other areas. I'm only speaking from our experience, so our comments are limited to the Internet service providers.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  I think what we'd like to see is some clarification that PIPEDA was never intended to negate or interfere with people's moral and lawful duties to be good corporate citizens in assisting the police. Obviously our issue comes back to protecting children, but if there's a way to in

Information & Ethics committee  In fact, we've had a long-term interest in the issue and in the bill. We have been working in particular with one a lady from British Columbia whose daughter has been missing for a number of years. She's been very vocal on this issue. We've worked with your predecessor, Mr. Lunn,

Information & Ethics committee  From our point of view, certainly with reference to where it says there should be a warrant, obviously we agree with our friend that if there's a warrant, that's a must. There should be no discretion.

Information & Ethics committee  I don't want to speak for my friend, but from our perspective, in cases of child exploitation through the Internet, it should be “must”. There should be no discretion for ISPs. I don't want to speak for anyone else, but that's our position.

Information & Ethics committee  I can only give you anecdotal examples that we've been told about by law enforcement. We've referred to some media articles as well in our brief. The Edmonton Journal article I referred to from last week even says that the head of the RCMP centre says, “We can't start without kno

Information & Ethics committee  I wouldn't say that she would have a more enhanced role in tracking down abusers, but I'm thinking of a more enhanced role in looking into the issue of what ISPs could do, for example, to better assist law enforcement and to speak for the children and talk about their privacy int