The committee met at 8:48 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): I’m very pleased to have a statutory offices finance and operations update. Today we have the Office of Information and Privacy Commissioner, so I will turn it over to the new commissioner.

M. McEvoy: Good morning.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Good morning.

Financial and Operational Updates
from Statutory Officers

OFFICE OF THE INFORMATION
AND PRIVACY COMMISSIONER

M. McEvoy: I’ve appeared here a number of times in the past as deputy, but it’s a pleasure to appear for my first time as your new Information and Privacy Commissioner.

Joining me today is Jay Fedorak, who is our deputy commissioner, along with Dave Van Swieten, who is our executive director for shared services. I also want to recognize members of part of our great OIPC team — in the back, Michelle Mitchell and Jane Zatylny.

I want to begin by expressing my appreciation for the opportunity to meet with you beyond the once a year budget submission. I’ve long been a supporter of more regular meetings of the committee. Thank you for these mid-year appearances.

[8:50 a.m.]

Our office preaches greater accountability for public bodies and organizations. That applies to our own office, too, by being more accountable to the public through this legislative committee. Among other things, these meetings give us an opportunity to provide you with updates on the progress of our work and to answer questions that you may have for us.

Before beginning, I wanted to acknowledge former acting commissioner Drew McArthur for his service to the province. His role as acting commissioner lasted over a year and a half, a particularly challenging task because it was both temporary and his term indeterminate. Despite all of that, he represented the office’s mission with distinction and ensured me a seamless transition, for which I am grateful.

Picking up from my predecessor’s presentation in November, I will brief you today on how we managed our financial resources during the past fiscal year. I will then provide you an update on our budget for the current fiscal year with the funds that you approved last November. I will outline our priorities for the coming year. I will conclude with a program update of our major projects.

I’m pleased to report that we completed the past fiscal year with a small surplus. On a budget of $6.064 million, we underspent by $87,000. This was within our target surplus of no more than 2 percent of our allocation. I would note that we received a late supplementary one-time allocation of $58,000 to our budget to cover the cost of a salary increase for the officer. That resulted from the recent salary increase settlement for provincial court judges. Due to our careful budgeting, we ultimately did not require those funds, and in total, returned $145,000 to the consolidated revenue fund.

I wish to thank the committee for approving my predecessor’s request for a budget increase of $157,000 to cover the cost increases for the 2018-19 fiscal year. I do not anticipate the need for further funding for this year. The priorities of my office that were outlined for you last November remain unchanged.

I also do not anticipate making any changes to the existing service plan that you have approved. The primary focus for the OIPC will remain the same, providing more timely service to British Columbians as the demand for our services continues to increase. To highlight that increase, the load of case files that we received during the 2017-18 fiscal year was 13 percent higher than the previous year.

Even with this increase in demand, the amount of time that complainants wait for their files to be investigated has held steady at 13 weeks. the same time period we reported to you in November. We were able to keep up with our increasing workload by closing more files than in previous years, a tribute to our hard-working staff. Our workload in the adjudication division is also holding steady at about 90 active files. We have, however, shortened the amount of time it takes for adjudicators to decide cases from 23 to 19 weeks.

Now I’d like to turn to this fiscal year. We are focused on several areas. The first concerns the continuous improvement project that began in 2015. We are now moving into the third phase of CIP and anticipate achieving further efficiencies that will enable us to close more files faster.

The second area and priority is to increase the number of public and private sector organizations that implement effective privacy management programs. When organizations bake into their operation the protection of people’s data, it will almost certainly reduce the likelihood of privacy breeches and offer better safeguards for citizens’ personal information. We also intend to issue additional guidance to assist organizations throughout the province.

The priorities for the Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists also remains unchanged — to promote reform of the Lobbyists Registration Act and to ensure that lobbyists are aware of their obligations. I note that the government has recently implemented some amendments to the legislation. These changes, which take effect on May 1, will help increase transparency in lobbying. Our staff have been working diligently to ensure that the lobbying community and the public are aware of these pending changes.

I am also encouraged that the government has commenced a consultation process for the purpose of further improving the legislation. Deputy Commissioner Fedorak has been leading our office’s efforts to engage with government in this process, and I look forward to seeing the results of those efforts.

To summarize, as of today, I believe that we can achieve the initiatives I have set out within our existing budget allocation. The one caveat I would alert the committee to relates to the consultation process I just mentioned with respect to the Lobbyists Registration Act. This could result in changes to the registry that would require additional funding. I wanted to make the committee aware that we may need to address this issue in our next budget submission.

[8:55 a.m.]

I would now like to turn to the recently completed and projects underway. In a matter that will no doubt be of interest to the committee, we are currently investigating how political parties in this province use information they collect from B.C. voters. We’re looking to see, among other things, if the practices that are engaged in by political parties in British Columbia comply with the Personal Information Protection Act.

We can say our office has been pleased. Our investigators have received full cooperation from all parties represented in the Legislature. We will continue that work and report out, I believe, sometime in late spring or the early part of the summer.

Another matter of concern to British Columbians that we have just reported on is the excessive collection of personal information by landlords in this province. Our office found a systematic practice of landlords asking tenants for an unreasonable amount of personal information during the application process.

Imagine a landlord asking a young couple in Maple Ridge, looking for an apartment for months, for bank statements; or an elderly man in Surrey, who has language challenges, to complete a behavioural questionnaire. We made a number of recommendations to landlords about the kind of personal information they collect for the purposes of selecting prospective tenants.

This report and others like it highlight the need for my office to promote awareness of privacy obligations that extend to organizations. To that end, we have recently launched a self-assessment tool for private sector organizations to help them ensure compliance with the Personal Information Protection Act.

As concerns public bodies, we continue to examine whether they are meeting their responsibilities to respond to access-to-information requests under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act in a timely and effective manner. Where public bodies are succeeding on this front, our office will not hesitate to praise them and to hold them up as good role models for others.

Such was the case in our audit of WorkSafe B.C. WorkSafe B.C. conducted appropriate searches for records, rarely applied fees and usually met legislative timelines to respond to applicants. It withheld little information and provided a full explanation when it did not find responsive records. Our audit also noted that WorkSafe B.C. made case files available to clients on line, without the need for a formal information request. In short, it was gold stars all around.

The news was less positive, however, with respect to the time it takes the government of British Columbia to respond to access-to-information requests. While there have been some improvements, these response times continue to fall short of what is required by legislation.

As WorkSafe B.C. demonstrated, one way to reduce the burden of responding to access requests is to routinely and proactively make information available to the public. I intend to release a report soon that examines the obligation of public bodies to identify categories of records that should be made available to the public routinely.

The recent breach of personal information by Facebook will no doubt be of interest to this committee. The breach is global in reach and includes hundreds of thousands of Canadians. It almost certainly includes a great number of British Columbians. Many parties have been associated with this matter, including AggregateIQ, a B.C.-based company.

The intense media attention has focused a spotlight on how regulators, like our office, cooperate with other data protection authorities in order to protect their citizens’ interests. This includes the joint investigation of Facebook and AggregateIQ that my office is now conducting with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

More generally, I am pleased that British Columbia has played a significant role in developing ties between provincial, national and international regulators. B.C. is a leader in trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific, and where there is trade, there is almost always a flow of data, often the personal data of British Columbians. Our continuing work with the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities, in which we play a leading role and which this committee has strongly supported, is aimed at protecting that personal data.

In fact, it is fair to say that in the digital age, we can’t properly protect our citizens’ personal data without cooperating with our colleagues globally. When VTech, a Hong Kong–based toy manufacturer with a Canadian subsidiary in Richmond, B.C., suffered a massive global privacy breach that affected many B.C. parents and their kids, we collaborated with our colleagues in Ottawa, Alberta, the Federal Trade Commission in the United States and the Hong Kong Privacy Commissioner to ensure that the breach was properly remedied.

This committee’s financial support for B.C.’s leadership role as the secretariat with the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities very much assists in meeting this objective.

[9:00 a.m.]

Here in B.C., citizens are well informed about their rights and the political landscape that we all enjoy here, and that is no doubt one reason why we receive more files per capita than any other Canadian regulator. The fact that we also close more files per capita is a testament to the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of our talented staff.

That efficiency also extends to managing our own resources. A major component of our resource management is our partnership with the offices of the Ombudsperson, Police Complaint Commissioner and the Merit Commissioner. By sharing support services under the leadership of Dave Van Swieten, our executive director of corporate services, we are able to achieve economies of scale that benefit each office, as well as the taxpayers, while maintaining the levels of service that they have come to expect.

Thank you for your interest in the work and performance of our office. I very much look forward to building a very good working relationship with the committee over the course of my tenure as commissioner.

I would welcome any questions that you may have for me and for us.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Michael. I just wanted to applaud the office for really managing your resources so well and also the staff for its commitment to excellence. We really appreciate that.

As far as the public and the fact that the commission is being so vigilant in terms of data…. We all know how issues like Facebook, especially, and others are on everybody’s mind. We appreciate the efforts you’re making. It’s a big job, so we appreciate that.

It was interesting to hear about the landlord-tenant issue. I’ll be really interested to hear — I’m sure we all would — more about that, especially with the housing crisis and how difficult it is nowadays. Of course, the political party report will be interesting as well. I’m looking forward to that.

Thanks again, especially for being vigilant in regards to protecting our data.

Are there any comments or questions from committee members at all? Would you like to weigh in or say anything?

R. Leonard: Thank you very much for your presentation. It was very all-encompassing.

Since the Chair brought up the issue of excessive collection by landlords, which you mentioned, has your mind turned to any opportunities in terms of legislation that might help reinforce landlords’ responsibility? We are looking at updating the Residential Tenancy Act.

M. McEvoy: Thank you for that question. I would say that in general, at any point where government looks to draft legislation to attend to areas, for example, like landlord-tenant, our office is often engaged in that process where we can certainly provide advice to government.

We are presently working through some of the recommendations that have been made in that report with landlord associations across British Columbia to ensure that there is compliance with those recommendations.

We’re very open to the idea, certainly, of discussing with government and legislators issues about potential reform that flow out of the report. I think the answer is yes, in short.

P. Milobar: Just on that line, was there any discussion ahead of time, or has there been any review done? There have been quite a few pieces, especially in the previous session, of changes to the amount of reporting that’s needed for homeowners and the type of information that people previously never had to provide to government.

Was your agency tasked with looking at any of that, or have you? Are there any concerns around the sheer volume of data that’s going to be getting collected on some of those new pieces of legislation around home ownership and connected in with your income tax, and all that?

M. McEvoy: I’m going to use the excuse that I’ve actually been away from the province. I’ve been in the U.K., as some of you may know, working on efforts for the Information Commissioner’s office in the U.K. for the last seven months.

I am not aware, at this point, of consultations that might have been undertaken with the office on that front. That’s something I can look into, but it would not be an unusual thing that government, when they’re looking at legislation, would consult our office about that kind of work. I know, certainly in the past, that has been the case. Specifically with some of the newer initiatives, I’m not sure, but I can certainly get back to the committee member on that.

[9:05 a.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Thank you, Peter.

Seeing no more questions — everybody’s good? — I wanted to thank you very much for coming in. Again, congratulations on the appointment. We’re really looking forward to seeing what the commission will be doing in the future. It’s a very important, timely position in terms of all the issues that the world is facing for data and for privacy. It’s going be a really interesting time. I look forward to seeing what reports come out from your office.

M. McEvoy: It will indeed.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, May 8. From 8 a.m. to 8:45 is the Office of the Representative for Children and Youth, and 8:45 to 9:30 is the Office of the Auditor General.

Thank you very much, everyone.

The committee adjourned at 9:06 a.m.