Information & Ethics committee  Of course.

Information & Ethics committee  In my written submission that you will be receiving, I do discuss this a little bit, and I'll provide you more information about it. The argument in favour of a tribunal is that you take the judicial function away from the Privacy Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner maint

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. It's not only consent, it's knowledge--knowledge and consent--and often, I think, the problem is with the first one, actually knowing and giving individuals clear, unambiguous information, not in legalistic language, about how their information is going to be used. I actual

Information & Ethics committee  Very briefly, I come back to the very first point I made, which is that it's obvious the rules need to be harmonized in this area and in other areas. The way our laws have been developed has been to a large extent with a view to harmonization and understanding the principles. I

Information & Ethics committee  I don't think it's premature. I think the five-year statutory review is a good thing. However--and I'm not sure this is going to answer your question--I think it is going to be difficult to separate out, when you see problems with the legislation or the implementation of privacy

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you for the question. The legislation doesn't make any distinction between consumers and employees; the information is collected on individuals. It makes distinctions in terms of employment, and the categories of information that are protected at the provincial and the fe

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, I have one or two brief things. The problem occurs in section 20 of PIPEDA. Subsection 20(1) obliges confidentiality in the proceedings. Subsection 20(2) allows the commissioner to “make public any information relating to the personal information management practices of an

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. On the issue of the work product thing, I'm not sure what I would have to add beyond what's in the Privacy Commissioner's paper on that. I'd have to go back to it. I can't quite remember. I think there were three or four different options that were included there, one of w

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. There is a good deal of analysis about the extent to which PIPEDA is costly in monetary and resource terms, etc. My own view is that the costs of being privacy unfriendly far outweigh those. The costs of having a bad reputation in the marketplace, of being seen as unfriend

Information & Ethics committee  There are plenty of examples, particularly with identity theft issues, where the stock of a particular company has plummetted as a result of bad publicity. It's difficult to quantify, and I don't have the information in front of me at the moment. I could certainly submit it to yo

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. With respect, there's a good deal of survey evidence that suggests individuals are concerned about new technologies and their use for surveillance purposes when they do not see a legitimate public purpose. When I talk to audiences, including my students, and I begin to ask

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  Maybe I could say something from some of the survey evidence that we have in Canada about what individuals think about privacy. It is true that the vast majority of Canadians do not know about the legislative protections and do not know about the recourses that are available to

Information & Ethics committee  Well, you're right that it's not clear at the moment. It's not clear because there is that exemption in the B.C. legislation. The definition of “work product”.... I'm very familiar with the case you're talking about, because I have to declare that I did do some work for the comp

Information & Ethics committee  Excuse me, I'm from British Columbia.