National Defence committee  I agree that leadership is important, and I agree that access to information and privacy are fundamentally important legislation, so they should be prioritized.

National Defence committee  I think the department should make efforts to make the system as user friendly as possible. One of the themes I've been pushing in terms of privacy in all aspects is really making sure we are not delegating to individuals and to citizens.

National Defence committee  I think what we're seeing in the system is lengthy periods of time, so that's something that....

National Defence committee  That work really is done by my office and by the Treasury Board Secretariat. The Treasury Board Secretariat will be providing guidance and information to the departments themselves. In terms of best practices and expectations, one example of that is the directive on privacy impac

National Defence committee  One of the improvements, certainly, that I would like to see in the privacy legislation, for both the public and private sectors, is order-making power. That is something Parliament has given now to the Information Commissioner in terms of access requests, which was a positive st

National Defence committee  A privacy impact assessment is really a due diligence tool whereby the organization thinking of putting in place a new program or tool that can have privacy impacts is required to assess the impacts and look at the risks and document them, and think of solutions to mitigate those

National Defence committee  It's all context-based. The legislation talks about a 30-day period for a response, and then there is the possibility of an extension for another 30 days. We would look at those cases on a case-by-case basis.

National Defence committee  As I've indicated, I think the bulk of the complaints we receive deal with delays to the process in terms of personal requests.

National Defence committee  What we see is that there are many cases in which the delays are greater. We work with the departments. We deal with the complaints. We've found that departments are collaborative in the complaints process as they work with us, but that is an important part of the number of compl

National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for this invitation to appear as part of your study of transparency within the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces. I'm accompanied by Isabelle Gervais, deputy commissioner of compliance, from my office.

Public Safety committee  There are a number of models. I would have a hard time identifying one model as the best option. For example, the European model sets out the key privacy expectations of necessity, proportionality and transparency. It gives a prominent role to privacy organizations. In addition,

Public Safety committee  Similarly, I think it's subscriber account information, communication data, website visits, metadata, location data and financial data that may not be what is ultimately requested, but we want to make sure that the bill doesn't allow for it. What we're recommending is that noti

Public Safety committee  As it stands, Bill C-26 does not include a requirement to conduct privacy impact assessments. The Treasury Board does, however, have a policy with such a requirement. We consult with departments regularly. We have a government advisory directorate, and we provide advice to depart

Public Safety committee  It is actually permitted to share information outside the country, provided that it's done in accordance with lawful agreements and specific conditions. Under the European model, for example, laws and mechanisms have to be equivalent to what exists in Europe. In Canada, the law r

Public Safety committee  That's exactly right. If it's in the legislation, it becomes a legal requirement, and departments have no choice.