Information & Ethics committee  Not yet.

Information & Ethics committee  For the extension order, there has not been a refusal. The request is still being studied.

Information & Ethics committee  Overall, I think the issue is that we're going to inherit many new responsibilities, first under this order and then under new laws in the private sector or public sector. That's why we think we need to increase our resources significantly, probably to double them. When you look

Information & Ethics committee  At this point, we're in a situation where unless we're provided further funding, yes, we expect the backlogs to grow. But I'm an optimist, and with new laws and a new extension order, I certainly hope there will be some funding that will help ensure that we can deal with these co

Information & Ethics committee  I'll speak in some detail, but I would refer you to the key recommendations for a new private sector law that accompanied a letter I sent to this committee further to its study on data mobility. There are two or three pages of specific recommendations. I'll just point to the ones

Information & Ethics committee  I'll be glad to do that. As I recall, Bill C-11 was tabled in the fall of 2020. The government has announced that a successor will be tabled in 2022, perhaps before the summer. I thought it was important that the OPC start thinking about how it would be organized to inherit n

Information & Ethics committee  I'll start by explaining what the current law is. The Privacy Act gives Canadian citizens the right to access personal information about themselves held by the government. That right does not exist for foreign nationals, except when they proceed through Canadian agents—

Information & Ethics committee  To cut this short, the government expects that there will be a very significant volume of access requests by foreign nationals, some of them immigrants interested in their immigration status, and proportionally there will be an increase of complaints with the OPC. We think there

Information & Ethics committee  It was not the dream of certain companies or departments to be investigated by the Privacy Commissioner, and I understand that. In the case of the mobility data, the government used experts. It was not legally required to consult us on the details. To my mind, the basic issue i

Information & Ethics committee  I would not say negligent. I have pointed instead to public-private partnerships. The government and its institutions are increasingly calling upon private companies that have developed technologies—which is normal—to help government carry out its programs. In this case, it was t

Information & Ethics committee  That's an interesting question. It speaks to the role, among other things, of the OPC, not only as an investigative body but also as a body that can provide advice to companies or departments on how to comply with privacy laws. That exercise involved, as you said, five data prot

Information & Ethics committee  It's certainly an issue that needs to be examined. There may be jurisdictional issues as to whether this falls under provincial or federal jurisdiction. I will not say it is clearly not under federal jurisdiction. There are companies under the ambit of PIPEDA, the private sector

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, on the substance.

Information & Ethics committee  —leaving to Parliament the authority or the choice to craft a reasonable standard for border officers to perform their duties. I would simply end by saying that I know that Bill S-7 proposes a novel standard to authorize border officers to perform their duties. At the end of the

Information & Ethics committee  There is an attempt in the bill to respond to a court decision and craft a standard. I have heard operational issues at the border, but I have not heard arguments or evidence yet that would address the question I am raising, which is that it seems to me the courts will require an