Watchdogs call for more oversight over voters’ privacy
OTTAWA — Canada’s privacy watchdogs are collectively calling on all levels of government to force political parties to disclose any personal information they hold on voters and allow for independent oversight to ensure they are respecting the privacy of the electorate.
In a joint resolution published Monday, Canada’s information and privacy ombudsmen and commissioners say recent events have revealed concerning practices deployed by political parties using digital tools to collect and use personal information — often without their knowledge or consent — to target individuals for political gain.
These increasingly sophisticated big data practices raise new privacy and ethical concerns, the commissioners say, underscoring the need for greater transparency.
“Information about our political views is highly sensitive and it’s clearly unacceptable that federal and provincial political parties are not subject to privacy laws,” federal privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien said in an interview Monday.
In March, Therrien launched an investigation into the alleged unauthorized use of some 87 million Facebook profiles globally — including those of more than 600,000 Canadians — by Cambridge Analytica, a firm accused of improperly helping to crunch data for Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential campaign.
Therrien said his officials are still poring over data holdings from Facebook and Victoria-based AggregateIQ, which has also been implicated in the Cambridge Analytica data breach. A team of investigators visited the office of AggregateIQ last week to gather information for the probe, Therrien said.
The companies have been co-operative with this investigation, he said.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal shone a spotlight on how parties use personal data to target voters for political gain.
The federal Liberals have proposed changes to national election laws that would require parties to enact privacy policies.
Therrien said the legislative proposals in the bill, known as C-76, add “nothing of substance” for privacy protection, noting the new law does not establish standards for how personal information is handled, nor does it allow for independent oversight.
“We have a federal election in a year’s time in Canada and political parties federally are not subject to privacy laws. I think Canadians should be concerned,” Therrien said.
British Columbia is the only jurisdiction in Canada that has brought political parties under privacy law. Voters in B.C. can also complain to an independent body about use of their private information by parties.
B.C. privacy commissioner Michael McEvoy said he believes the rest of the country would do well to adopt similar laws. And he’s not alone. A the House of Commons privacy committed recommended this year that privacy laws should be extended to cover political parties, and give greater investigative and enforcement powers to the federal privacy commissioner.