Information taken without your consent

Last month, I wrote about the serious concerns I was hearing from citizens on breaking news that Statistics Canada is demanding access to personal financial and banking information, including all transactions, along with bank account balances, without citizens’ consent.

Since that time, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer and the Official Opposition have been able to ask Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about these concerns in the House of Commons.

In response, the prime minister has made it clear that he supports Ottawa bureaucrats having access to your personal financial information.

The prime minister has also stated that Statistics Canada is actively engaged with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner on this file. There is a problem with that statement. The privacy commissioner has publicly stated he had no idea Statistics Canada wanted data on 500,000 households, until Global News published these details.

Further, the privacy commissioner also stated that Statistics Canada is falling “way short” of its stated objective of being transparent. Why does this matter?

Recently, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology had an opportunity to question the head of Statistics Canada on this program and learned some troubling new information.

Although initial reports suggested that 500,000 Canadians would be targeted annually, the actual number is 500,000 households. This means that everyone living within your family home would also be subject to having their personal financial information taken without their consent.

Statistics Canada also admitted that it is taking more information than it believes is necessary.

This means each year, 150,000 households more than necessary will have their financial data taken without consent.

Another troubling admission is that although Statistics Canada will “anonymize” your personal financial data, the agency also admitted that your original data, including your identity, will not be deleted and that if it is deemed necessary to reunify your data, Statistics Canada will retain the ability to do so.

When asked why not delete this personal contact information, the agency did not provide an answer.

We also learned Statistics Canada can charge fees to private corporations for providing them with neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood aggregated data, however Statistics Canada insists that this is not “selling” your data, but is recovering fees for service.

I have had constituents share with me that they feel large companies, like Facebook and Amazon, already have a significant amount of private transactional and personal information as it is.

Statistics Canada now claims this pilot program to take your private financial data without your consent is on hold pending the investigation from the Privacy Commissioner.

This week, the Globe and Mail reported that 74 per cent of Canadians they surveyed are opposed to Statistics Canada taking their personal financial data without their consent.

Locally, I am hearing even higher levels of opposition.

The Trudeau government remains supportive of your private financial information being taken without your consent and has claimed that citizens’ concerns raised by both the Conservative and NDP opposition is simply “fear mongering”.

My question this week: Are you concerned about your financial information being taken without your consent and shared with Ottawa bureaucrats or do you believe this is all a case of fear mongering?

Dan Albas is the Conservative member of Parliament for Central OkanaganSimilkameen-Nicola. To contact the writer: Dan.Albas@parl.gc.ca.