OTTAWA — The main federal political parties have developed and published privacy policies, as required by a new law, but none has adopted the stringent measures Canada’s privacy commissioner and chief electoral officer say are necessary to protect the personal information of voters.
None of the parties requires individuals to give meaningful consent for the collection, use and disclosure of their personal information, which the parties amass to help them identify and target likely supporters and the issues that move them.
None allows individuals to see what information has been collected about them. Nor does any party promise that personal information collected, for instance, in support of a petition on a specific issue won’t be re-used for other purposes.
Rather, the parties have for the most part simply met the bare minimum required by provisions in Bill C-76, which went into effect April 1.
Sharon Polsky, president of the non-partisan Privacy and Access Council of Canada, says the policies suggest a lack of sincerity when it comes to protecting voters.
“The term lip service comes to mind,” Polsky said.
The law requires parties to develop and post privacy policies on their websites. Among other things, the policies must indicate the type of personal information collected, how it is collected, how it is protected, how employees are trained in privacy protection and whom to contact about concerns.
They must also include a statement on a party’s use of personal information gleaned from online activity and its use of cookies.
Privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien has panned the new provisions, particularly the failure to require oversight by his office or some other independent third party that could investigate and rule on complaints about parties breaching personal privacy.