Parliamentary committee calls for tightening of data collection by Canadian businesses

The Liberal government should tighten the collection of personal data by businesses, a House of Commons committee has recommended.

The report issued Monday by the access to information, privacy and ethics committee (known for short on Parliament Hill as the ETHI committee) also says the government should “re-evaluate its digital standards regarding the download and use of all social media apps on government-issued devices in order to ensure that they are used primarily for government business.”

Since the only social media app Ottawa has banned so far on government devices is TikTok, the recommendation in effect calls for the government to ban similar apps – including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and more.

The recommendations are part of a report called Oversight of Social Media Platforms: Ensuring Privacy and Safety Online.

It comes as Parliament debates two proposed laws that touch on the committee’s work: C-27, now before the Senate after passing the House, which would create a new Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA) and an Artificial intelligence and Data Act; and C-63, the Online Harms Act, which would hold social media platforms accountable for harmful content as well as improve mandatory reporting of child porn by internet service providers.

The report doesn’t directly suggest amendments to those proposed laws. In fact many of the recommendations instead call for changes to the current Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), which would be replaced by the CPPA. Hearings on C-27 were held by the industry committee, while C-63 – introduced in February – hasn’t even got to the committee stage yet.

In a statement federal Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne noted the ETHI committee report calls for stronger protections for children and youth, including appropriate consent mechanisms and an explicit right to the deletion or de-indexing of the personal information of minors.

“We must respond to the well-documented harms to young people online and ensure that they are protected and that their best interests are a primary consideration in the design of products and services that concern or impact them,” Dufresne said in the statement.

“As children and youth embrace new technologies and experience much of their lives online, we need strong safeguards to protect their personal information and how it may be collected, used, and disclosed. Children have a right to be children in a safe environment, including in the digital world.”

What the ETHI report mostly does is summarize testimony the committee heard between October and December, 2023.

Its eight recommendations include

--giving the Privacy Commissioner of Canada the power to make binding orders and impose significant administrative monetary penalties. The CPPA gives the Privacy Commissioner the power to recommend administrative monetary penalties, but a new Data Protection Tribunal would have to approve them

--adoption of a European Union-style code of practice on disinformation and compel social media platforms to report regularly on their trust and safety activities in Canada and to provide Canadian researchers with access to their data;

--increasing funding to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police so additional resources can be allocated to providing cyber education and to fighting cybercrime;

--the government invest more in digital literacy “to better equip Canadians to protect their personal information online, recognize disinformation and misinformation, and identify harmful content online.”