Privacy commish ‘surprised’ by political ‘chill’ comments

OTTAWA — Canada’s privacy commissioner said Thursday that comments made by a Liberal party counsel suggesting the country’s private sector privacy laws would deter volunteers from engaging in the political process surprised him, considering his office currently doesn’t have enforcement powers under the law to administer penalties. On Tuesday, Liberal party counsel Michael Fenrick told the House of Commons ethics committee that the prospect of fines under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) would put a “chill” on volunteer participation in the political process, as volunteers have access to voter information. However, the country’s privacy commissioner and PIPEDA administrator Daniel Therrien told the same committee on Thursday that he was taken aback by the comments because of his office’s current lack of enforcement powers. “I must say that comment surprised me,” Therrien said. “I’ve talked at length about the absence of enforcement powers,” in the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, which has asked in committees past to provide it with enforcement powers and the ability to issue fines. Therrien hedged his comments by saying that his office could “possibly” see a concern if his office was given enforcement powers and noted that they may need to take a more nuanced examination as the law would apply to political parties. “When I recommend that PIPEDA applies to federal political parties, implicit in that is context would matter,” Therrien said, giving the example of political parties having a legitimate interest in engaging in political discussions with electors. “As we would eventually look at the application of PIPEDA to political parties, certainly there could be an examination of enforcement mechanisms, amount of penalties, what would make sense for the various entities subject .” Coming full circle, he noted that all entities in British Columbia -- companies and political parties -- are subject to the same privacy law, which have strict fines, and he doesn’t know any “chill” on volunteers there. B.C. is the only province to enforce privacy laws over political parties. Therrien made the comments on the same day that a provision in the privacy law came into force that will require organizations that suffer a breach of users’ personal information to report the incident to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and those affected if it poses a significant risk of harm. Failing to comply could cost organizations up to $100,000 in fines. Earlier in the morning, CRTC representatives also appeared in front of the committee. Scott Hutton, executive director of broadcasting at the regulator, reassured the committee that, under their recommendations to the government, those who are conducting broadcasting activities should be part of the system when faced with a question about whether social media companies -- which have evolved as influential disseminators of news and information -- should contribute. Hutton was going off a CRTC released report, released earlier this year and at the behest of the government, that recommended that players who benefit from system -- such as an internet service provider (ISP) or foreign over-the-top (OTT) service benefiting from the broadcasting system -- should make “equitable’ contributions to it. While Hutton spent a good amount of time reiterating what is found in that report, he made one recommendation to hasten resolve some of these matters. “All I would add is, in our front, one tool we would need in the Broadcasting Act, to be able to enforce quickly various matters, is administrative monetary penalties, which are not available to us at this point in time.” It’s the same recommendation CRTC chairman Ian Scott made to a Senate committee earlier this week. — With reporting by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Privacy commish ‘surprised’ by political ‘chill’ comments

News | November 1, 2018

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Privacy commish ‘surprised’ by political ‘chill’ comments

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