Industry committee  Thank you. Mr. Perkins, I think any data protection laws are going to necessarily involve a weighing exercise. This is something that Mr. Goldfarb picked up on too. It's about weighing different interests. I think that a lot of work could be done in proposed paragraph 18(4)(c) in terms of the prescribed requirements as part of the conditions of precedent, if there are specific concerns there.

Industry committee  I mean that the concerns could be dealt with in terms of prescribed requirements issued by the minister instead of having them solidified into the legislation itself. I think it's unreasonable to say that absolutely no data used should possibly engender any sort of harm to any specific user.

Industry committee  I would say that the bill specifically gives the Privacy Commissioner the ability to issue administrative monetary penalties, which is a very welcome addition. The one thing that strikes me, which I would like to highlight, is the fact that at the moment the OPC cannot issue an AMP for breaches of proposed section 12.

Industry committee  I know that Colin Bennett, among others who appeared before this committee, also raised this point. In light of big data political campaigning, I think it's very difficult to sustain a justification for why political parties should not be subject to data protection laws. I would certainly encourage their inclusion.

Industry committee  The point about record-keeping obligations is interesting. To my knowledge, the only olive branch the GDPR hands small and medium-sized enterprises is indeed concerning their record-keeping obligations. I would note that in the case of a children's code, which Ms. Gordon and I have spoken about, that can actually be very useful for helping businesses, because it provides them, in a way, with a starter manual for thinking through how they should design their products and services that are directed to children.

Industry committee  To quickly respond to Mr. Masse's question about the executive order, I would note that insofar as you're able to put things into secondary or delegated legislation, you would provide an opportunity for some type of harmonization. However, it's a tricky question of balancing what should be in primary legislation versus secondary legislation.

Industry committee  Thank you, Chair Lightbound and members of the committee, for today's invitation. I'm a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto's faculty of law, and a graduate fellow of the Schwartz Reisman Institute. I have more than a dozen peer-reviewed publications and numerous policy interventions on privacy and data protection law in Canada, the European Union and the United States.