Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Honourable members of the committee, it's a privilege to be here today to discuss the engagement of small and medium enterprises within federal procurement on behalf of the Information Technology Association of Canada, also known as ITAC. ITAC is the natio

Information & Ethics committee  I didn't mention this in the opening, but I did my MBA thesis on small and medium-sized enterprise, the compliance with PIPEDA and CASL, and the impacts on those small firms. I went so far as to do a survey of small businesses, and did some focus-group testing with them as well.

Information & Ethics committee  There were updates in the Digital Privacy Act in order to focus on the protection of minors—not the guys with hats who live in caves, but the children who we have to deal with—and it has to be a balanced approach. Robert pointed out that we need better education. This is the adv

Information & Ethics committee  When it was drafted in 1999 and introduced in the House, and then through enactment in 2001, I think that at that time we were clicking through websites and we weren't using these devices quite as much. I would venture to say that the pace of life was just a little slower. I th

Information & Ethics committee  I wouldn't suggest that you forget about it. You also need to look back into the pre-Internet world. If something ends up in a newspaper, it goes on microfiche and is still accessible. It's just different in the way that we access it now. We're using a search engine and going to

Information & Ethics committee  The recourse is already there. It was there before the Internet came about, and it maintains its applicability today.

Information & Ethics committee  I'd add to that. In his opening remarks, Robert pointed out the reasonable person test. Whether consent is the right vehicle is a question that you guys are measuring now. The question is, is it informed consent? Are people just clicking through that button and never reading anyt

Information & Ethics committee  You won't see a lack of compliance from the industry in responding to a judicial order. We have judicial procedures in place, if a judge decides that the content on a website needs to be taken down. You won't have any issue—the company or the website host will take it down. This

Information & Ethics committee  Adequacy remains highly important, especially pursuant to the EU trade deal and the free flow of data between Europe and Canada. I wouldn't go so far as to say the GDPR is the gold standard. One would have to measure the privacy levels in Europe against those in Canada. Maintai

Information & Ethics committee  There's little question. An example coming out of the EU is the cookies example. Every website that you have in Europe has a warning that pops up first. I'm not sure anybody is more or less protected by this policy. It's burdensome for companies and it's burdensome for the cons