Committee Liveblog: Google.ca at Ethics on privacy

MacKay notes that Google *does* use data provided by users to put together super-helpful services, including potential life-saving apps like the crisis maps that helped track Sandy earlier this week. "I suspect there are some gmail users in the room," MacKay says (at least one reporting in right here) -- he challenges them (us) (me) to try to remember the last time a morsel of spam popped up in the gbox, as opposed to *other* mail services that one is forced to endure. (Helllooooo, Outlook/Novell!)

I will, however, spare you the somewhat shameless pitch for Google+. (Hey, are we -- by which I mean the committee, but also those of us who follow it -- going to get to hear from Twitter, too? I'd totally come back for that. Twitter! Eeeee!)

First up: NDP MP Charlie Angus, who admits that he's never seen spam on gmail - and he even likes the idea of Google+ with its separate circles, noting that occasionally, youngsters in his riding "befriend" him, and end up exposing him to teenage conversations that he really feels he shouldn't see.

Oh, interesting: MacKay can't comment on the specifics of the wifi case, since that file was active when he was with his previous employer, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. I didn't know he was ex-OPC! Not that there's anything remotely untoward about such a move -- actually, it makes sense for Google to hire someone with his expertise. Anyway, Angus goes on to quiz MacKay on Google's past administrative disputes with various European privacy officials - all forgiven, if not forgotten, now, at least if MacKay's answers are any indication.

Finally, Angus gets MacKay to provide a little more information on Takeout (or possibly Take Out), which, he explains, is really designed to "keep us honest."

Calkins wonders how, exactly, one can be sure that the deletion of a gmail account is a real, honest to goodness deletion that can't be reactivated or resurrected via server backup. MacKaynotes that the bit is switched, rendering the data inaccessible, and opening those little chunks of google server memory up to be overwritten with new information. Even Calkins looks satisfied by the answer.

Back to the government side, and John Carmichael, who asks MacKay if he believes that harshenforcement mechanisms are required, which -- doesn't seem to be how he, or Google, envisions as the ideal scenario, it's safe to say. He does, however, attest that the services provided to Canadians by Google are secure and any potential for breach is taken seriously. Carmichael, however, muses that the committee has to do *its* job - and he's worried that there is, in fact, a privacy problem. As such, what would MacKay suggest the committee tell Canadians to ensure that their information are secure? MacKay agrees that a combination of measures are required - not just the right tools, but an awareness, amongst all generations, of how one should share information or make it restricted. As such, Google, he notes, launched the "Good To Know" education campaign, as well as partnering with likeminded organizations.

Back to Charmaine Borg - whose motion, some readers might recall, launched the committee down its current line of inquiry in the first place back in May -- who wonders whether websites are recorded by default -- without changing any settings -- and, if so, when that data would be automatically deleted. MacKay points out that it's "an evolutionary approach", so there will be elements of that data that may be useful in future, including some that could be aggregated and used to create new tools. Borg persists: Is there an automatic destruction sequence after, say, ten years? There is -- ish, but it's not quite that simple, MacKay notes.

Borg, it seems, is particularly interested in ensuring that consumers are consenting in a knowing, enlightened state, which gives MacKay the opportunity to tout an Android feature that allows users to reject a particular app based on the level of usefulness.

Moving from the macro to the micro, Butt notes that he has a soon-to-be-teenage daughter who is already *very* socially media savvy. Should there be special tools to make sure young users -- and older users who, as Butt puts it, "should know better" -- fully understand the context? MacKay shares his concern -- he has three children over the age of 12 -- but notes that, while the technology may be new, it really is the age old challenge of trying to exert control over someone who is becoming an adult.

It appears the committee has no more pending questions -- or quesitoners on the list, at least -- which gives the chair the rare opportunity to ask one of his own: What if a Chrome user who goes incognito commits crimes? Is he or she really untraceable? MacKay points out that if one is, for instance, promoting sedition or engaged in similar activities, they'd likely be on the radar already, making the browser (and its logs) largely irrelevant.