Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022
Date: 2023_04_20
Chamber: HOUSE OF COMMONS
Mr. Joel Lightbound: before I start, I have to say that I have learned a lot listening to the interventions in this debate. I've just learned that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs is subscribing to the feed of the hon. member who just spoke. I know he is a brilliant and knowledgeable man, so he must have other sources of information. That I can guarantee. It is my pleasure to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-27 , the digital charter implementation act, 2022, which, as my colleagues know, contains three parts. Part 1 enacts the consumer privacy protection act and replaces Part 1 of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, or PIPEDA. Part 2 establishes a personal information and data protection tribunal, which is a key component in the enforcement of the consumer privacy protection act. Finally, part 3, which has been the subject of more discussion this afternoon, enacts the artificial intelligence and data act, which lays the foundation for Canada's first regulations governing the development, deployment and design of artificial intelligence systems. I will come back to that a little later. First of all, I implore the members of this House to support Bill C-27 and send it to committee for further study. In my view, Bill C-27, as it is currently drafted, is a big step in the right direction in terms of both privacy protection and artificial intelligence. Obviously, there are areas where the bill could be improved. I have great confidence in the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, which I have the honour of chairing. I know that it will study this bill carefully and come back to the House with amendments that will be useful and improve the two important areas protected by Bill C-27, namely privacy and the regulation of artificial intelligence. This will help foster innovation while ensuring that any risks associated with this new technology are well managed in Canada. It is important for us to move forward and vote in favour of Bill C-27, because the privacy legislation it replaces was enacted over 20 years ago. I am referring to PIPEDA, the law that caused me so many headaches when I was a young lawyer. Now, 20 years later, we all know that its approach to regulating privacy protection is a little outdated. With organizations growing ever more powerful and collecting ever more data using increasingly intrusive technologies, the time has come to modernize the protection of personal information in Canada. Our privacy is under attack. In my opinion, privacy is one of the cornerstones of our democracy, just as philosopher Vladimir Jankelevitch saw courage as the cardinal virtue without which all other virtues grow dim or practically disappear. Courage is the impetus. To me, privacy is kind of the same thing, because it leaves room for the inner life a person needs to feel free to express themselves, free to think and therefore be truly free. Jeremy Bentham understood that, as his panopticon concept shows. A panopticon is simple; it is a prison that, instead of being in the shape of a large rectangle with several cells lined up next to one another, where a guard comes by from time to time to check on the inmates, it is circular and has a central tower where a guard may observe the inmates. Knowing that they might be watched, the inmates will modify their behaviour and will be better behaved. The idea is that when we know that we might be monitored, we censor ourselves, which is what makes privacy so important. To me, that is what makes privacy one of the foundations of our democracy. Bill C-27 does not affect the public sector, the relationship between the government and citizens, or the Privacy Act. It targets the private sector, which in my opinion is just as important, given the rising power of some companies that are collecting more and more information about citizens all the time, as I mentioned. As we saw from what has come to light in the United States, in some cases, these companies have a suspiciously close relationship with the government. Take, for example, Edward Snowden's revelations and the "Twitter Files". Given the amount of data they collect, they know their users so intimately, maybe even more intimately than the users know themselves, that studies show they even have the ability to change users' behaviour. For example, think about social media and the suggestions that are made. That can influence a person's ideology. It can also influence consumer choices. For me, there is no doubt that we need to improve and increase the protection of personal information and privacy. There are some good things in Bill C-27. I will start by talking about those things, and then I will move on to what could be improved. First of all, I am very much in favour of the power given to Canadians under this legislation that allows them to delete their data. I think that is a must. I also welcome the power that Canadians will have to share their personal information among organizations, which could encourage competition. In my view, it is commendable that the bill gives greater powers to the Privacy Commissioner, including the power to order organizations to stop collecting or using data. I think that reflects what we have heard from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, for example. I also welcome the fact that that office will have more flexibility to focus on its priorities or the priorities reported to it by Canadians. I would also point out that the tougher penalties in the bill are good news. Finally, a key aspect worth mentioning is the protection of minors, as the bill makes their personal information de facto sensitive, which enhances their protection. I think that is very positive. As for what could be improved and what should be noted and studied in committee, I believe that privacy protection should be set out as a fundamental human right, both in the preamble of the bill and in clause 5. I think that would send a clear message and have legal consequences. It would send a clear message to the courts having to address this issue and result in significant legal effects. I know that the government has raised jurisdictional issues regarding this issue, and so I would be interested in hearing more in committee. I also think it would be worthwhile clarifying the provisions around consent. The proposed subsection 15(4) of the new act talks about plain language that an individual to whom the organization's activities are directed would reasonably be expected to understand. That is a change from the current version of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which refers to the user's understanding. I do not understand this change. I am not certain that it adds clarity to the consent to be obtained. I would like to hear more about that. I am not convinced of the probity of implied consent, which is set out in subsection 15(5). In my opinion, it would be preferable to only have express consent, without which a company could invoke legitimate interest, as long as that legitimate interest is clearly defined in the legislation as being secondary to the interests and fundamental rights of individuals, a bit like we find in the European general data protection regulation. Finally, I believe that the sensitive information referred to in the bill would benefit from being clarified and defined, in the absence of a very specific definition as seen in Quebec's Bill 25, which gives companies a lot of latitude to determine what they consider sensitive information. I think that Bill C-27 would be improved by clarifying and defining the notion of sensitive information. I would be curious to learn more in committee about the security safeguards, control over one's own personal data, the role and benefit of the tribunal being created, and how it would protect privacy. To be completely honest, I have not formed an opinion yet, but I am eager to find out more. This leaves me far too little time to talk about artificial intelligence. However, that is what I wanted to talk about the most. Time flies when having fun. I will say a few words, if only to point out the staggering increase in AI over the past two years. For the benefit of any lay people in the House, GPT-3 was created in 2020. I am also a layperson, but I have benefited from the knowledge of experts like Jeremie Harris. I want to give a shout-out to him, because he organized a conference on Parliament Hill with me a few months ago to try to raise awareness about artificial intelligence. He explained to me that there was a revolution in the AI world two years ago. Instead of trying to connect artificial neurons, researchers realized that all they had to do was increase the number of artificial neurons to create ever more powerful neural networks. The speed of the increase has been staggering: GPT-2 had 1.5 billion parameters, GPT-3 had 175 billion parameters, and GPT-4 has 100 trillion parameters. They are likely getting close to achieving human-level intelligence. Everyone is talking about ChatGPT, but it is not the only AI out there. There is also Google's LaMDA, which is not public and which we know very little about. Blake Lemoine, one of the engineers who worked on it, was fired this summer because he said that he thought Google's LaMDA was sentient. That is one example, but there are also PaLM and Gato, which were developed by Google's DeepMind Lab. That is not to mention all the initiatives that we are not even aware of. I think AI opens up a lot of opportunities, but it also comes with a lot of risk. When human intelligence can be so accurately mimicked and probably even surpassed one day in certain areas, that comes with national security and public safety risks. That being said, I echo the call of many researchers, including Yoshua Bengio and others in the field, who are saying that we need to support the principle of Bill C-27 , that the bill needs to be examined in committee and that Canada needs AI regulations.