Don’t allow social media data use by political parties: professor

OTTAWA — There is no reason for political parties to be using social media data in election campaigns, a Laval University political science professor argued Thursday, suggesting such use should be banished. “There are things that political parties could decide to no longer do, or could no longer be allowed,” Thierry Giasson, according to simultaneous translation, said to the House ethics committee studying the Facebook data controversy. “The use of social media data, in my opinion, should not be allowed.” The argument, Giasson said during a phone interview, rests on three pillars: the fact that the parties don’t need it, there is no legal framework guiding that data collection, leading to potential abuse, and the potential of data to be microtargeted to feed information to some Canadians over others. “There shouldn’t be votes that are considered more useful for a party,” Giasson said, suggesting the practice hinders a larger public debate ahead of an election. “I would support a ban on any form of microtargeting messaging by political parties on social media,” he added. Thursday's testimony also brought University of Victoria political science professor Colin Bennett and a director of trust and security at Mozilla Corp., the makers of web browser Firefox. The running theme during the testimony was a need for accountability and transparency regarding how data is used by political parties in campaigns. “All the data that is collected from citizens, through visits to your websites or organization websites through online petitions, should be accompanied by disclosure of what you’ll be doing with that information, so the citizens clearly know that if they leave their phone number or their address, their postal code — this will be part of a database and you’ll be using that for targeting,” Giasson said during testimony. The professor added that citizens don’t have access to this information and don’t know how public opinion is being played during the election campaign. “An election law should have clear guidelines as to the use of social media,” he said. In the interview, he said beside regulating social media data use practises, a robust Elections Act would include as core principles that election campaigns be shared experiences that don’t microtarget citizens — through targeted ads, for example — which would otherwise create an uneven distribution of information. But he also said political parties have enough data at their disposal “to be able to target the voters need without having to further collect data.” Privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien, who was brought before the committee earlier, also said that political parties have enough data at their disposal to reach constituents and recommended bringing political parties under the auspices of the Privacy Act, which covers government activities. Both professors Giasson and Bennett agreed with bringing parties under privacy legislation. Private companies fall under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). The committee had previously discussed similar themes, including whether the data mining scandal contravened Canadians laws and if that data could be used to influence political outcomes, when it also hosted Facebook Canada’s Kevin Chan and accused data firm Aggregate IQ. On the latter matter, Therrien testified that the over 600,000 Canadian records collected through the use of an app that required the consent of only 272 users is a significant enough number to impact an election. Bennett said he believes that lack of consent for data collection that involved the 622,161 records was in contravention of PIPEDA, which the privacy commissioner is currently investigating. He also said the non-consensual data capture "would certainly be in contravention” of the General Data Protection Regulation rules the European Union begin will enforcing next month. Bennett also urged all political parties to come to some form of agreement on what is an acceptable practice with respect to offline and online data collection. — With reporting by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Don’t allow social media data use by political parties: professor

Broadcast | April 27, 2018

Unlock all the Canadian telecom, broadcasting and digital media news you need.

FREE TRIAL

SUBSCRIBE

Inside The Wire Report

Information

Hill Times Publishing

Get in Touch With Us

Don’t allow social media data use by political parties: professor

Broadcast | April 27, 2018

Unlock all the Canadian telecom, broadcasting and digital media news you need.

FREE TRIAL

SUBSCRIBE

Related Stories

Google and federal government reach deal over Online News Act

Canadian Heritage proposes Online News Act regulations, Meta’s not interested

Facebook’s refusal to send witnesses angers Heritage committee

Consultation will be held for exemption under Bill C-18, committee votes down amendment to force negotiation with all outlets

Reuse & Permissions

Inside The Wire Report

Information

Hill Times Publishing

Get in Touch With Us