Liberals reject privacy rules for political parties
OTTAWA — The Liberal government will not impose privacy rules or oversight on federal political parties, rejecting a key recommendation from an allparty committee in the wake of the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The decision means federal political parties can continue to collect, store and use the personal information of Canadian citizens without limitations, laws or independent oversight.
Because they’re specifically exempted from federal privacy laws, parties are also not required to report if they’ve been hacked or suffered a data breach involving sensitive information about Canadians. The Star has learned the government will not accept a recommendation — endorsed by MPs from the three major parties on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee — to develop a set of privacy rules for political parties or bring them under existing laws.
Instead, under the Liberals’ electoral rule changes, parties will simply have to post a privacy policy online. Bill C-76 does not allow for any independent oversight, however, to ensure parties are actually following their policies.
“If the government decides to ignore the recommendations from an all-party committee on protecting the privacy rights of Canadians, I find that very disturbing,” said Charlie Angus, the NDP vice-chair of the committee. “I also think it would mean that this Liberal government is playing with fire. This study on the privacy rights of Canadians and data happened at the time of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which shows us the power of operators to undermine the democratic processes in countries around the world.”
In exempting political parties from privacy laws, Canada is largely an outlier. The United Kingdom, New Zealand and much of the European Union subjects parties to privacy rules.
University of Victoria professor Colin Bennett said so long as political parties are not required to implement strong privacy safeguards, there’s a serious risk that Canadians’ personal information could be exposed.
“The political parties have not done a great deal in (creating safeguards),” Bennett, whose research focuses on the social implications of information technology, told the Star in an interview Tuesday.
“And particularly troubling in my view is when voter management systems are shared with a whole range of different workers and volunteers at the time of a campaign, (those people) have very little privacy or security training.”
On Monday, federal Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien — along with his counterparts at the provincial and territorial levels — issued a joint statement saying it’s “clearly unacceptable” that political parties are exempt from privacy laws.
The privacy watchdogs collectively called on all levels of government to put some form of restrictions on parties’ data operations — an increasingly crucial aspect of electioneering in Canadian politics.
The joint statement mirrored a recommendation of the Ethics, Privacy and Access to Information Committee’s June 2018 report on the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, where 600,000 Canadians had their personal information improperly harvested and used for political analysis.
The government has not yet tabled an official response to the committee’s report. But a spokesperson for Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould suggested requiring a privacy policy was as far as the government was willing to go at this time. “We are following the committee’s conclusions by ensuring that political parties have publicly available privacy policies, while allowing them to continue to engage Canadians in a fair, democratic process,” wrote Nicky Cayer in a statement to the Star on Monday.
Bennett said he believes the major parties are colluding on the issue and would push back against any effort to put rules around their ability to collect and use voters’ personal information. One of the benefits of clear rules, Bennett said, would be a level playing field among political rivals.
“Politicians have got it into their head that they can win elections by having better data than the opposition, (and) it’s producing a bit of a race to the bottom,” Bennett said.
“And that needs to stop.”