Committee
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Add search criteria
Results: 136 - 150 of 1160
Melissa Lukings
View Melissa Lukings Profile
Melissa Lukings
2021-06-07 12:56
We don't need more regulations of surface web content. We don't. We just need to use the laws we have. We have a Privacy Commissioner, so let's have that person do their privacy commissioning and apply the laws we have. I don't think we need to add anything, and I absolutely do believe that adding in new regulations will put people at risk of exploitation and other types of harm and will push traffic onto anonymized networks.
We don't need more regulation. That's the opposite of what we need.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
Thank you.
Mr. DeBarber, I'd like to go back to the issue of how these images are promoted and exploited and can be found in search engines. One of our survivors said that she has tried again and again and again to deal with police, to deal with anyone, to get her thumbnails and all that information. Even though the video has been taken down, it's still out there. It's still available.
Are there not simple tools we can apply so that when something is taken down, it's actually removed, so that we have the right of survivors not to be harassed by what's still there?
Charles DeBarber
View Charles DeBarber Profile
Charles DeBarber
2021-06-07 12:57
Yes and no. It all depends on where it's hosted. It also depends on where you're getting it through. One, there's live content on other websites and other platforms, but then there's the stuff that's right in Google cache. Those are two different animals in terms of getting them purged. You actually have to purge both. Caching is more or less backing the information up. When you click on Google Images, for example, you're usually seeing the cache. When you get rid of the live content, you have to get rid of the cache too—fun fact.
Now, with some companies, like Google, lawyer Carrie Goldberg helped Google write its policy to remove NCP back in 2016, I believe. I'm glad that the rest of the big tech giants, including social media like Reddit and Twitter, emulated that process. The copyright process is still easier, unfortunately. Once again, if that image is repeated 100 times, let's say, then often 100 different notices have to get sent out. You have to do it in both the search engine and on there, but here's the rub—you can get it un-cached on Google, and delisted, but that doesn't get rid of the live content.
Here's one short answer: Give my contact information, please, and I'll help your client pro bono.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm speaking to my motion today to invite Mr. Steven Guilbeault, the Minister of Heritage, to come to the ethics and privacy committee to testify on the plans that are being led through the heritage department to deal with the allegations of non-consensual sexual assault videos that exist on PornHub.
At the April 12 ethics meeting, we were informed by security minister Bill Blair that the government of Mr. Trudeau will “introduce legislation to create a new regulator that will ensure online platforms remove harmful content, including depictions of child sexual exploitation and intimate images that are shared without consent” and that “Public Safety Canada and other departments are working on this proposed legislation with Canadian Heritage, which leads this effort.”
We have had no indication of what this new regulator is and I think we need clarity.
I would just step back a minute and say that this all stems from the December 2020 reports that came out of the United States on horrific abuse of children and sexual assault victims on PornHub, a company that is based in Canada. We began our study at that time to see if our laws were insufficient or if there was a problem. We asked the RCMP to come. The RCMP have made it clear that they are not moving forward with allegations against PornHub. They've talked about their being a partner. They've talked about voluntary compliance.
I received the RCMP's internal briefing documents in response to the December 2020 article, and in that document, it talks about what next steps have to be done and it mentions the leadership of the heritage department. My office asked the RCMP to send us the blacked-out information to explain why the RCMP is deferring to Mr. Guilbeault's office. My staff was told that this would breach cabinet confidence.
What that tells me is that after the December 2020 article came out in The New York Times on PornHub, this issue was discussed at the cabinet of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a decision was made then to have Mr. Steven Guilbeault and the heritage department handle this file, rather than transferring it over to police, to the Attorney General or to public security.
I think this is really important. We cannot finish our PornHub study without knowing what exactly the government's plan is, because we have Bill C-10 right now that Mr. Guilbeault is in charge of, and I think the government shocked everybody when they decided to put user-generated content under Bill C-10. I've talked to many arts organizations that were shocked that Bill C-10 includes user-generated content. It is nothing that the artists' community wanted. They want Facebook and Google to pay their share. Where is this user-generated content coming from? Is this to address the allegations the survivors brought to us on PornHub?
If that is the case, Mr. Guilbeault needs to explain that, because I don't think you could disrespect survivors in any more of an egregious fashion than to suggest that sexual assault videos or videos of the torture of children that were brought forward to our committee are somehow considered user-generated content in Canada. What does that say to survivors? What does that say to the women of the global south who I have been meeting with, who are speaking from Nigeria, Colombia, Spain and France, talking about the sexual assault videos from their countries that are being posted on a Canadian site?
Are the Liberals telling us that they consider sexual assault and criminal acts mere content that can be handled by a regulator? Are they going to hand it off to the CRTC under Bill C-10, or are they going to create a new pornography regulator? I would like to know what that pornography regulator would be, because, again, I had excellent meetings following the debacle of our meetings with the sex workers, and Ms. Lukings provided really interesting analysis of how what we want to do is to make sure we hold corporations accountable for what's online, but we don't want to push stuff to the dark net.
If the Liberals have this idea that Mr. Guilbeault could set up some kind of regulator to tell us—I don't know—Canadian content in porn, good porn, bad porn.... Do we need a regulator or do we simply need the Liberal government to apply the laws?
We can look at the laws we have in Canada. In section 162 of the Criminal Code, it is a crime to film the private acts of individuals or people without their consent. It is a crime to circulate, to sell, to advertise or to make available the recording. We have a law. In section 163, sexual videos of crime, cruelty and violence are classified as criminal in behaviour. We heard from the survivors of non-consensual sexual assault videos that their videos were videos of crime, cruelty and violence. Section 164 gives the authorities, which would be the RCMP, the power to issue warrants to seize the recordings of voyeuristic videos of crimes as well as child pornography.
We have mandatory reporting laws. We have learned that Pornhub has not followed through on them. Pornhub has not respected the laws we have in this country.
The Attorney General doesn't seem to even think it applies, because he's not sure if this Montreal-based company is a Canadian company. If the Attorney General, who lives in Montreal, isn't sure that Pornhub is a Canadian company, even though their address is on Décarie Boulevard and everybody in Montreal who goes to work passes their office in the morning, then how are we expected to believe that the CRTC or some kind of regulator will handle this?
I think Mr. Guilbeault needs to come and explain this to us. What is the government's plan for dealing with the issues of sexual violence on Pornhub that have come to our committee? Are we going to ignore Canadian law or are we going to establish the CRTC to do this? Is this going to be Bill C-10 or...? Mr. Blair suggested that they're going to create a new regulator.
I think Mr. Guilbeault needs to come and inform us so that we can actually finish a report on what Parliament needs to do to address these disturbing allegations of brutality and non-consensual sexual assault of women, not just from Canada but from around the world. We need to be able to respond to those survivors and to the Canadian people that we've done our job. We cannot do that job without Mr. Guilbeault coming and explaining why he is the lead person appointed by the Trudeau government to address these very serious allegations.
I'd like to bring that motion forward for a vote.
View Chris Warkentin Profile
CPC (AB)
We'll move to a vote on the amendment.
Madam Clerk, I'm wondering if you'll run through the roll call for the purposes of the vote on the amendment. This is Mr. Dong's amendment. Then we'll vote on the main motion.
(Amendment agreed to: yeas 10; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 10; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
The Chair: Members, that's very helpful. I'm glad we can do that.
Of course, next week our meetings are scheduled to be the review of the report on pandemic spending. I think Mrs. Shanahan may have some suggestions for meetings in the week that follows.
Mrs. Shanahan.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
Thank you, Mr. Therrien. It's a pleasure to have you back before our committee.
As you know, we have been studying the issue of non-consent videos and photos of people being on the site Pornhub MindGeek. Are you presently involved in an investigation of whether or not they have breached the privacy rights of Canadian citizens?
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
I fully understand.
I'm interested because one of the survivors who approached us had tried to get the RCMP to investigate. The RCMP are saying they believe in a voluntary compliance model. We tried to see if the Attorney General's office is interested. They don't seem to be moving on this file at all.
One of the things that an RCMP officer told this survivor was that they believe Pornhub MindGeek was exempt because of their terms and conditions, the consent that exists on their website, and I know you've raised issues of the vague nature of terms of consent on websites.
Do you believe that the fact that they have their own set of terms of consent would somehow absolve them from the Canadian privacy laws?
Daniel Therrien
View Daniel Therrien Profile
Daniel Therrien
2021-05-10 11:34
I'll be careful because we're investigating.
I'll just note the general principle that consent is generally required to collect, use and disclose personal information under Canadian private sector privacy laws, and even if consent is given, there's a further rule that provides that even if consent is provided, a company cannot collect, use and disclose information if a reasonable person would find that inappropriate.
Caroline Dromaguet
View Caroline Dromaguet Profile
Caroline Dromaguet
2021-04-28 16:13
Thank you, Mr. Amos, for that excellent question.
Of course, COVID-19 has had a huge impact on the museum, which was closed to the public for most of 2020. In addition to the subsidy we receive from the government, the majority of our revenue comes from visits to the museum, and we've seen that revenue drop by 96%. Seeing no improvement in the coming year, we had to apply to the government for funding to offset the loss of revenue that we would most likely experience. We were granted this funding, and I believe it is in the neighbourhood of $4.9 million. That allows us to continue with the programming and activities that we had planned. However, I should point out that the Canadian War Museum and the Canadian Museum of History are a corporation, and they share the $4.9 million. I should add that the distribution of the money hasn't yet been determined.
We've learned a lot in the past year. Like all cultural organizations, we've had to move to digital platforms. We had already planned to do that, but the current situation has accelerated that shift. By necessity, our planning was often focused on people coming into the museum, physically coming to the site. Now our school and public programs and exhibits are tailored to digital platforms. It's really allowed us to be more consistent with our mandate, which is national. It has allowed us to reach Canadian audiences, and even an audience beyond our borders. We've seen very good results. Our social media presence has increased by 17% in the last year, which is great. It has allowed us to encourage discussion with the Canadian public, which is a very diverse audience.
In terms of the programs we have developed, it has also allowed us to approach military history in a much more modern and current way. For example, the boxes of artifacts that we send free of charge to schools across Canada are accompanied by teaching materials that teachers can use in the classroom. What we found was that more and more, this was generating dialogue with students who were new to Canada, first talking about Canadian military history, and then very spontaneously students from a variety of backgrounds, often from countries that were experiencing conflict, talking about their own experiences. That really allowed us, over the last year, to broaden and reach out to many more Canadians with military history.
There is also the commemoration aspect, of course. With the money that we were very fortunate to receive in the federal budget, we can continue to deliver our programs and expand them in preparation for the very likely renewal of the Canadian War Museum in the years to come.
View Chris Warkentin Profile
CPC (AB)
Colleagues, I call this meeting to order.
This is the 31st meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.
I'd like to remind colleagues that today's meeting will be televised, and it's going to be available via the House of Commons website.
Pursuant to the motion adopted by this committee on Friday, December 11, 2020, the committee is resuming its study on the protection of privacy and reputation on platforms such as Pornhub.
Today we have three witnesses with us. We have Melissa Lukings, who is the juris doctor candidate, Faculty of Law, University of New Brunswick. We have the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform, Jennifer Clamen, who is the national director, and we have Sandra Wesley, who is the executive director at Stella.
We'll turn it over to our witnesses. I believe we'll start with Melissa Lukings for an opening statement followed by the others.
Ms. Lukings, the floor is yours.
Results: 136 - 150 of 1160 | Page: 10 of 78

|<
<
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
>
>|
Export As: XML CSV RSS

For more data options, please see Open Data