Study of party data mining needed, minister says

No set plans to impose rules on how politicians collect personal info

Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould says political parties “absolutely” need privacy laws for how they collect and use Canadians’ personal information.

Just don’t expect them any time soon.

Gould told the Star that Parliament should study how to bring federal political parties under some kind of privacy regime. There are currently no rules governing how party operatives collect, use and store data on Canadian voters.

“We absolutely need to move forward with a privacy regime,” Gould said in an interview outside the House of Commons.

“But I think that we need to study how they do this to ensure political parties can continue (their) critical engagement with Canadians … I think that as parliamentarians we can come together to understand this issue better and actually have a discussion about it.”

Federal political parties are specifically exempt from federal privacy laws. In Canada, only one jurisdiction — British Columbia — applies privacy rules to its political parties.

In June, MPs from the three major parties on the House of Commons’ standing committee on access to information, privacy and ethics recommended that change. The recommendation came after a study into Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, where tens of millions of the social networks’ users had their personal data improperly taken and used for political analy- sis and influenced campaigns in the U.K. and U.S.

The Star reported in September that the Liberals will not accept that recommendation at this time, although the government has yet to formally respond to the report.

Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, the ranking Liberal MP on the committee, said he believes its members think “to a person” that parties need a privacy framework.

“The question is, are we in a position to recommend a specific way forward? I’m not sure that we are just yet,” ErskineSmith said. “(But) B.C. has rules, the U.K. has rules … I don’t know that we need to do all that much further study to get at a specific set of rules.”

Under the Liberals’ proposed election law, Bill C-76, parties would be required to adopt and publish privacy policies to detail how they collect, use and store Canadians’ personal information. But because there is no independent oversight, Canadians will be left with taking the parties at their word.

Colin Bennett, a political science professor at the University of Victoria, said transparency around what types of data political parties collect and how they use it is crucial.

“I think there’s some urgency, here,” Bennett said.“I think the pressures by political parties, and also organizations outside of political parties, is to get more and more data on Canadians. Because they think that the more data you have, the better chance you have of winning.”

“I think that it’s very important for there to be a clear and consistent and uniform set of rules, and transparent set of rules, in place before the next election.”