Information & Ethics committee  Personally I would like more time to think about that before I declare myself. Certainly I could see how someone would be concerned, and it seems to me a reasonable proposition that because I've entrusted my information to one entity, if they sell their business or do business with another entity, I should be aware of that.

Information & Ethics committee  There's the practical—and then I think the presupposition of all privacy legislation as a human rights issue is that it's actually the person the information is about who should be the ultimate decision-maker on where that information can go. If that's where the basis of it all starts, I think that might answer your question.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. My comment would only be that when we look at proposed regulations regarding information protection, very often we do recommend that the definition of personal information be expanded. We mentioned the Georgia state shredding law, which we like to use as an example. That law excluded phone numbers as a piece of personal information, much as PIPEDA does.

Information & Ethics committee  I understand, but if it's matched with an account number and matched with an address and with the name, it becomes kind of a ballet for those experts: how many different pieces do they have to be able to put your mosaic together?

Information & Ethics committee  That is my point. The things you exclude are the things that they're going to put together to make the mosaic.

Information & Ethics committee  I won't go so far as to say that. It certainly could aid and abet those trying to do that.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  Our members provide service in a relatively amoral and antiseptic environment. We are contracted to destroy media containing information. We have no concern about what is on that medium other than that the client who hired the member wants it to be properly destroyed. So we really don't know whether it's competitive information they want to have destroyed, personal information about their customers, or it's just the way they've chosen to get rid of all of their media so that no one ever sees it when its destroyed, and they know its fate.

Information & Ethics committee  Quite respectfully, I do not think the distinction between private information, personal information, or work product is applicable to our situation, because we provide those services that we provide only because the client asked us to do it. In a perfect environment, which we try to create, our employees never see the information and don't know what it is.

Information & Ethics committee  Maybe the better way to look at it is that we consider everything we take, because that's our charter, as highly confidential and private, of the utmost privacy. It may not be. It may be work product that is totally stripped of all identifying information about individuals. That is not our decision to make.

Information & Ethics committee  Very much so. It's the primary source of the information that goes into identity theft. It's hard-copy access. These are not high-tech breaches.

Information & Ethics committee  I don't think they've unified yet, although I do have an article here on a theft ring that specialized in dumpster diving to get private information and capitalize on it.

Information & Ethics committee  I think one of the reasons that NAID Canada and NAID Europe have been such a most credible source, of information is that we don't always take a position that might be the best economic thing for our members. We actually use this as a consumer advocacy organization, by our mission and charter.

Information & Ethics committee  We will.

Information & Ethics committee  I would just say that unless you spend as much time obsessing on this issue as we do, being in the industry—The word “destruction” means destruction. It's reasonable to think that “destruction” means something, but it still has some interpretation, and that's why we're asking that the definition of what you mean by destruction be included and explained to the readers.