PUT BITE ON BYTE ABUSE
B.C.’s new information commissioner should take a page from predecessor’s playbook
From the United Kingdom came more evidence this week of the impressive job Elizabeth Denham has been doing in that country’s version of the information watchdog position she held in B.C. for six years.
“Facebook fined for data breaches, lack of transparency, failing to protect users’ information,” read the combined headlines Wednesday in the Guardian newspaper.
The fine, the equivalent of $875,000, was the largest allowed under the legislation Denham administers as the U.K. Information Commissioner.
“This is not about fines, though,” she told the BBC. “Fines and prosecutions punish the bad actors, but my real goal is to effect change and restore trust and confidence in our democratic system.”
The fine being just the latest development in a scandal that began with revelations that a U.K. firm, Cambridge Analytica, mined data collected from Facebook users to target voters in the U.K., the United States and elsewhere.
The alleged culprits include Aggregate IQ, a Victoria-based firm involved in the leave campaign in the 2016 Brexit vote.
Denham’s inquiry into the entire affair, described as the most important in the history of the office, has enlisted 40 fulltime investigators and 20 outside experts in forensic data recovery and the like.
As well as fining Facebook for its part in the abuses, Denham has also put 11 U.K. political parties on notice that they may be next because her team will be compelling them to submit to data protection audits.
The most insidious aspect of data mining entails taking personal data posted on one site — like a Facebook account — combining it with information obtained by whatever means from other sources, then targeting those people with political messages crafted to appeal to their personal predilections.
“Most of us have some understanding of the behavioural targeting that commercial entities have used for quite some time to sell us holidays, to sell us trainers, and follow us around the web,” says Denham.
“But very few people have an awareness of how they can be micro-targeted, persuaded or nudged in a democratic campaign, in an election or a referendum.”
Denham’s latest moves drew accolades from across the political spectrum — as has happened since the former B.C. resident (“I am a Richmond girl”) and UBC graduate (BA in history, masters in archival and information science) took up the five-year posting in the summer of 2016.
The U.K. job actually pays less — $250,000 versus $290,000 — than Denham was earning in B.C. But the challenges and opportunities are obviously greater.
When she moved over to the U.K., it was clear that the U.K.’s gain would be B.C.’s loss. As information and privacy commissioner here from 2010 to 2016, she was singularly effective at holding the provincial government to account.
On the freedom of information side of the mandate, she exposed the myriad ways the B.C. Liberals used backchannel communications, triple deleting and even Post-it notes to avoid proper record keeping and disclosure.
Her Access Denied report in the fall of 2015 stands as a landmark exposé on Christy Clark’s systematic failure to live up to promises of openness and transparency.
On the privacy side there was her memorable analogy when the education ministry stored the confidential records of 3.4 million British Columbians on an unencrypted hard drive, then lost the drive in a storage warehouse.
“If this were actually a situation involving a loss of 3.4 million dollars” — as opposed to data on 3.4 million individuals — “I believe the government would take rapid, dramatic and decisive action,” said Denham. “Only when ministries view personal information assets with the same attitude and care that they view financial assets will British Columbians’ trust be earned.”
After that performance, both parties in the legislature were poised to offer Denham a second six-year term. Caught off guard by her decision to go to the U.K., they were unable to reach the required unanimous agreement on a successor before the election.
Only in March of this year, did the house come to a consensus on Michael McEvoy, who’d served as deputy commissioner under Denham.
Before being appointed to the posting in B.C. effective April 1, McEvoy did a secondment in Denham’s office in the U.K. Perhaps he came home inspired to follow her example in going after data mining and other privacy abuses.
On the access to information side, he’s already rebuked the New Democrats for their that-was-then, this-is-now approach on preserving records, particularly emails.
After reports of multiple abuses of record keeping by two cabinet ministers and several senior staffers in the premier’s office, John Horgan confessed his sins on the floor of the legislature.
“I take full responsibility,” he told the house in late May. “I am disappointed that we are not always meeting the standard.”
McEvoy followed up with a statement of the obvious that combined dismay with sarcasm.
“I was surprised given what our office has said in numerous investigations, given what government’s own policies have dictated, given the record schedules for what is to be retained and what can be safely destroyed,” the commissioner told Rob Shaw of The Vancouver Sun. “In those circumstances and in the general awareness, it’s surprising stories like this would continue to happen.”
A good start for the new watchdog. But in light of his predecessor’s record, he’s got a lot of living up and catching up to do.
As well as fining Facebook for its part in the abuses, Denham has also put 11 U.K. political parties on notice that they may be next.