Ethics committee wants political parties to come under privacy legislation

Following nine public meetings that began in March, the House committee studying Facebook Inc. and its data woes is recommending the government bring political parties under privacy legislation. “Canadians would have greater confidence if they knew that their political parties were not exempt from privacy legislation,” the report noted, adding that could be accomplished either by amending or enacting new legislation. The recommendation is part of a slew of preliminary suggestions that the ethics committee presented in a report Tuesday, following over three months of study of revelations that unveiled Facebook data was being used without consent to influence political outcomes around the world. The committee will release a final report when it completes the study. Currently neither the Privacy Act, which oversees government activities, nor the private-sector-governing Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) cover political parties. “Any legislative amendment should obviously take the special activities of political parties into account so as not to entirely prevent the use of personal information, but rather to better regulate its collection and use and the transparency surrounding the management of such information,” the report added. The recommendation has been one made by a number of advocates, including some political science professors appearing before the committee. It also fills what the privacy commissioner of Canada Daniel Therrien called a “flaw” in proposed elections legislation Bill C-76, which mandates political parties make their privacy policies transparent or risk deregistration, but doesn’t recommend bringing them under privacy laws. Citing Therrien, Tuesday’s report also acknowledged this reality. The report also recommended that the government incorporate transparency measures that would make clear how political actors collect and use data online. The requirements in the report would ensure openness about what those groups are doing when they collect and use data to “target political and other advertising based on techniques such as psychographic profiling.” Those requirements could include identifying who paid for an ad, the audience they target and why, and require registration about political advertising outside Canada. During witness testimony, the committee heard from a political science professor, who recommended that political parties be banned from collecting social media data for elections. It also heard from high-profile witnesses including the original whistleblower Christopher Wylie, who was employed by the now-defunct data analytics company Cambridge Analytica, and alleged accomplice in the data collection circle Aggregate IQ (AIQ), and Facebook Inc. AIQ largely denied using Facebook data linked to Cambridge Analytica. But the report noted that it did not agree with the company’s version of the facts, “as the witnesses’ testimony is inconsistent, full of contradictions, and conflicts with the testimony of several other reliable witnesses,” including the companies connected to Cambridge Analytica. The report also calls for the establishment of rules and guidelines related to “data ownership and data sovereignty” to end “the non-consented collection and use of citizens’ personal information.” Former co-CEO of BlackBerry Ltd. Jim Balsillie also appeared before committee to lay out the need for a national data strategy to combat what he called “surveillance capitalism” by the technology giants. A couple of days later, his new Centre for Digital Rights organization that is pushing those issues registered to lobby the government. Currently, the consent-focused European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, in effect since May, requires organizations to give users of their services the choice to opt-out of sharing their data. And that issue arose at an industry conference earlier this month, when a Telus Corp. executive recommended that a solution to companies’ trust woes is to implement “no consent by default.” Following a review of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), the ethics committee released a report recommending that the privacy law have consent as its guiding principle. The committee took the opportunity Tuesday to re-raise PIPEDA, and doubled down on the recommendation — previously made in their earlier report — that the privacy law be amended to give the privacy commissioner enforcement powers, such as to make orders, impose fines for non-compliance, and give it broad audit powers. On that note, it also suggested giving the privacy office the power to “issue urgent notices to organizations to produce relevant documents within a shortened time period, and the power to seize documents in the course of an investigation, without notice.” Tuesday’s report also recommended giving the privacy office the ability to share relevant information in investigations with the Competition Bureau and other Canadian and international regulators. “The revelations about Cambridge Analytica and Facebook have exposed the risk of the malicious collection of personal information, but the Committee is also aware that other organizations are probably engaging in such activities,” the report said. The committee said the additional measures in the committee’s February PIPEDA and Tuesday's report would more closely align it with the GDPR, despite PIPEDA already enjoying adequacy status. “The urgency of the matter cannot be overstated,” the report concluded. — With reporting by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Ethics committee wants political parties to come under privacy legislation

Broadcast | June 19, 2018

Unlock all the Canadian telecom, broadcasting and digital media news you need.

FREE TRIAL

SUBSCRIBE

Inside The Wire Report

Information

Hill Times Publishing

Get in Touch With Us

Ethics committee wants political parties to come under privacy legislation

Broadcast | June 19, 2018

Unlock all the Canadian telecom, broadcasting and digital media news you need.

FREE TRIAL

SUBSCRIBE

Related Stories

Wireless data essential tool for study of urban recovery from pandemic

Updated: Quebecor scales back Manitoba expansion after CRTC access rate decision

Loblaws releases No Name mobile plans across Canada

Wireless networks withstand effects of solar eclipse

Reuse & Permissions

Inside The Wire Report

Information

Hill Times Publishing

Get in Touch With Us