Industry committee  I have a problem with the fact that the bill distinguishes between large companies and small and medium-sized companies, because, in the case of the most intrusive systems, I doubt that the size of the company matters. Let's say someone opens a new gym equipped with several track

Industry committee  All right, thank you.

Industry committee  I will answer first and Ms. Sai can round out my answer. Under the current regime, a decision is made directly by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. The process takes about a year, in the case of major investigations. Based solely on the experience of the Competition Tribunal,

Industry committee  Yes. This is where you get into disputes with businesses about whether what they are collecting is necessary for the purchase. If you go into Tim Hortons and you want to order your coffee when you're waiting in line, so when you get to the window it's ready, do they need to track

Industry committee  Right. I think the business answer would be that we're not going to use that personal information to disadvantage you. We're going to offer you benefits. There's a new pumpkin spice latte. We're going to give you a coupon while you're waiting in line. Some people might accept th

Industry committee  Section 18 is gone, yes.

Industry committee  I don't buy that, because businesses are functioning very well right now. I don't know of any innovation that's being stifled by the present law. Perhaps the Business Council said something different the other day. If you take proposed section 18 out.... Now consider that propos

Industry committee  In the United States, of course, they don't have a comprehensive privacy law. We're lucky to have PIPEDA here, so a lot of our issues don't have to go to court. However, for those very difficult situations or widespread privacy violations, at least the threat of a class action ca

Industry committee  I think together we each give it a one—so two.

Industry committee  We base our opposition to this on the fact that the Privacy Commissioner presently does investigations and, although they are sometimes slow, the results are, in our opinion, fair. We looked at the Competition Tribunal debacle this year with Rogers and Shaw, and the use of that

Industry committee  We have a lot of concerns about that, especially since the initial draft of what the privacy tribunal would be like would be that there would be only one privacy expert on that. The Privacy Commissioner presently has enough expertise to make a proper administrative decision, and

Industry committee  Yes, I mean the whole thing.

Industry committee  Under the present act, if you change the purpose for which you're using and collecting personal information, you have to give a chance for reconsent. The Privacy Commissioner hasn't always received complaints on that type of approach, but at the moment at least, you could complai

Industry committee  If you brought a complaint, the business would probably raise that as one of its defences. I would think that it would also rely on proposed subsection 18(2) of the CPPA and say, “That's the way business is done in this business, and good luck with your complaint.” Taking out pro

Industry committee  Thank you, Chair. The Public Interest Advocacy Centre is a national, non-profit and registered charity that provides legal and research services on behalf of consumers—in particular, vulnerable consumers. PIAC has been active in the field of consumer privacy law and policy for o