EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNO W ABOUT TECHS (BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK)
As the ‘Big Five’ global tech companies grow ever more powerful, countries such as Canada must weigh how to protect both their citizens and the economy
Barely a week goes by without some kind of tech scandal — whether it’s Amazon’s surprise Valentine’s Day decision to pull out of its planned New York City headquarters, or last week’s scathing report on disinformation and fake news from the U.K. Parliament that accuses companies such as Facebook of behaving like “digital gangsters.”
The global tech-lash is growing. At the same time, the products and services offered by the tech giants remain incredibly popular. They have become crucial parts of our economy and increasingly integrated into all aspects of our daily lives.
As jurisdictions such as European Union pull ahead with cutting-edge, if sometimes controversial, legislation to regulate the companies and protect citizens, Canada hasn’t completely caught up.
Countries around the world are grappling with how to rein in the tech giants, particularly the so-called “Big Five” — Apple, Google parent company Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft. We take a look at what they’re doing, and how Canada stacks up.
The issue: For Ann Cavoukian, former information and privacy commissioner of Ontario, privacy comes down to control.
“Personal control over the use of your data, when it’s disclosed, how it’s used. You should be the one in control,” says the distinguished expert-in-residence at Ryerson University, who leads the Privacy by Design Centre of Excellence
Practically it’s about tech giants collecting and selling our data to third parties without our consent, she adds. This has been exposed in a slate of recent scandals, from the discovery of a microphone built into Google’s Nest Secure home security system, to tracking by Google services on Android devices and iPhones even when privacy settings are turned on.
She singles out Facebook and Google as particularly being a concern.
“They have created a state of surveillance,” she says.
Amazon is not as bad but there are still concerns, she adds, like with their controversial facial recognition technology, Amazon Rekognition. The company’s own shareholders urged Amazon not to sell it to governments, fearing potential human rights abuses.
Microsoft and Apple deserve more credit, she says, and their CEOs have both made public commitments to privacy. That’s because companies like Apple are selling a physical product, unlike Facebook and Google, says Avner Levin, a professor at the Ted Rogers School of Management in the law and business department.
“The people that are using the service are the product that is actually being sold to advertisers,” he says, referring to Facebook and Google. “We are the product that they are selling.”
Privacy is linked to wider issues like fake news, and the weakening of democratic institutions, he adds. This was illustrated in the 2016 U.S. election campaign, when Russians deployed targeted information to manipulate social media users. What others are doing: In the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission is currently investigating to see if Facebook violated a 2011 “consent decree,” which said they would address concerns about the tracking and sharing of user data, Cavoukian says. Facebook could face a hefty fine if found to be in breach of this order.
But the “gold standard” for privacy legislation is the European Union, says Levin. It passed the comprehensive General Data Protection Regulation in 2016. The legislation includes hefty fines (up to 4 per cent of a company’s global revenue or 20 million euros, whichever is greater). It also has strict language on consent, the concept of privacy by design, and the right to be forgotten, under which individuals can apply to have negative search results deleted.
Similar laws have been passed in Japan, Brazil and California, Cavoukian says, and there’s discussion in the U.S. about national legislation. What Canada is doing: Canada is in “a significantly weaker situation than the EU,” says Andrew Clement, professor emeritus in the faculty of information at the University of Toronto.
The federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) was developed in 2000, before Facebook and smartphones, and lacks the “fining powers” of the EU law.
“There appears to be more willingness in the EU to use existing powers for bringing the tech giants to account,” he says.
Levin says there’s been an “absolute lack of will” on the part of both the Trudeau and Harper governments to do anything about privacy.
In 2012 in response to complaints, the federal privacy commissioner did an investigation into Facebook. But the office doesn’t have the “power to force Facebook to do anything,” he says.
The EU, influenced heavily by the Germans, is more attuned to the dangers of a loss of privacy, given their history of totalitarian governments.
“They’re a lot more willing to regulate the companies, they’re a lot more worried about the consequences,” he says.
But Cavoukian is optimistic that Canada can catch up.
In 2018, the federal standing committee on access to information, privacy and ethics issued a report entitled “Towards Privacy by Design,” which she believes shows a “clear intent” to enhance the law.