Information & Ethics committee  Thank you so much, Chair, and good afternoon, members of the committee as well. Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today on behalf of the Privacy and Access Council of Canada. My remarks today reflect round tables held by the council with members from across the publ

Information & Ethics committee  We need substantive education that explains what privacy is. It doesn't exist yet. Really, it's no different from me tossing my car keys to the kid across the street and saying go have a good time but stay safe out there, without explaining what a stop sign is or what to do when

Information & Ethics committee  Well, consent fatigue is an interesting term. I think it's more a matter that people are resigned to the fact that no matter what they do or don't encounter in a so-called privacy policy, it's irrelevant, because the language that has been allowed—and frankly, embraced—by Canadia

Information & Ethics committee  On the Privacy Act, I'd say it's important to stop having so many fractured puzzle pieces of privacy legislation—federally and provincially and territorially. With each one, although they're very much alike—they're similar in most respects—they all have different exemptions, and

Information & Ethics committee  The facial recognition that we use right now pulls a selection of mug shots from our database, and then a person actually has to look at the suspect picture and the database and compare them. That's fine. Not one of them could wrap their heads around the idea that there is such a

Information & Ethics committee  No. Very simply, no, because they're no different from most people across Canada, and I dare say elsewhere. Without education about the correct compliance requirements, what the legislation actually means, what the technology can actually do—not the sales pitch—all they can rely

Information & Ethics committee  When they can talk about themselves in their own lives, yes. I've spoken with many members of law enforcement from across Canada in different agencies, municipal, federal and military, and they basically say this: I'm not interested in being assumed to be a criminal. It's just a

Information & Ethics committee  That is, as I said in my remarks, the consent fantasy. Mr. Zuckerberg himself said to the U.S. Congress that even he doesn't read these things. The last time I counted—yes, I did count—the Google privacy policy, it was 38 pages long. Nobody is going to read it. As a result, they'

Information & Ethics committee  If you're talking about getting rid of the cookie consents, that has become a farce, quite bluntly. You see them on so many websites. There are some websites where you can go in to adjust your cookie settings, but then you can't get past that. You must accept all cookie settings,

Information & Ethics committee  We've already seen that happening in the United States, where the big technology companies have literally written the legislation that is being passed in several states. They call that privacy law. It's not. It doesn't protect individuals. It doesn't give them any greater right t

Information & Ethics committee  There were many.... Not only am I the president of the Privacy and Access Council of Canada, but for roughly 30 years I've been doing privacy impact assessments and privacy consulting privately. Through that, I have been invited inside everything, from governments and public bodi

Information & Ethics committee  I have had the opportunity to speak with a couple of very senior members of the RCMP, and they had, I think, a solid understanding. They are genuinely concerned. Their hands, I might say, are tied sometimes. Sometimes the technology is bought or trialled by somebody, and nobody e

Information & Ethics committee  There was a professor at McGill a few years ago, with whom I was discussing developing some education to be rolled out to schools. There are media organizations and various privacy commissioners across the country, that have developed little courses, little programs. They're avai

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you. I'm not an academic. I leave that to you, sir, but I go back to news reports out of the Welsh police, where the senior-ranking officer said that facial recognition—and I'm paraphrasing—came up with something like 92% false positives, and he said that was okay, becaus

Information & Ethics committee  The short answer is yes, considering that several years ago, when I did some research, Toronto already had 15,000 CCTV cameras in public use. That doesn't include what's in stores, cars, cellphones and all the rest of it. Calgary replaced its lamp standards with a new type of lig