Information & Ethics committee  The Department of Justice published a consultation paper about a year ago on potential principles for a new public sector law. We recommended certain changes, but by and large, we were fairly happy with the general tenor of the bill and its principles. One of the issues, if not

Information & Ethics committee  That has not been a matter that we have experienced or applied very frequently. There are provisions in privacy laws that protect whistle-blowers who wish to make complaints, for instance, either against a company or a government institution. They are used extremely rarely; in fa

Information & Ethics committee  In broad terms—and I have not looked at the Privacy Act or PIPEDA in that regard recently—obviously a whistle-blower should be protected. Their identity should be protected by the tribunal or the office that considers their complaints. At the same time, the complaint needs to be

Information & Ethics committee  I have, and officials of the OPC will testify on Monday before the Senate on this legislation. We have prepared for it, so I can say a few things. Clearly, one of the areas of activity we've examined and investigated during my mandate has been this issue of the searches of cell

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. That is very kind. Good morning, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss some of the lessons of the last eight years and some high-level recommendations on how the law should b

Information & Ethics committee  Nefarious by...?

Information & Ethics committee  I would go back to my general point. Yes, we have investigated the link between Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. We have studied the use by Cambridge Analytica of data, in some cases to try to influence political processes. There can be also other nefarious uses. I think it's

Information & Ethics committee  The rules are too vague to give the necessary level of trust that citizens should have in the collection of information by many parties, including the public sector and the private sector. I think the government recognizes that there's a need to enhance trust. At this point, peo

Information & Ethics committee  [Inaudible—Editor] and adapted to the context.

Information & Ethics committee  We don't have any intelligence on that.

Information & Ethics committee  The purpose of the legislation is to protect constitutional rights and human rights. So from that standpoint, the answer is yes, definitely. As to whether it's the best model, I'm not sure whether my colleagues would all agree with me, but I would say that it's a very good model.

Information & Ethics committee  Facial recognition is a technology which, when used improperly, can very seriously violate basic rights. I've heard questions about the desirability of a flexible principles-based act. It's generally true, but in view of the consequences of facial recognition, I would strongly en

Information & Ethics committee  We're back to the complexity of how to craft the law. Let's say we're within the realm of a serious crime, which, according to our recommendations, would lead to the police being able to use facial recognition. The law cannot know of all individual cases, so there will have to b

Information & Ethics committee  I'm not aware of such a case, no.

Information & Ethics committee  I'll go back to one of your earlier questions. If, in certain circumstances, warrants would be required to be issued by a court, then we're probably in a world where these amendments would be made through the Criminal Code. I haven't given a whole lot of thought to the overall