On privacy, Telus exec criticizes media; says Canada should avoid ‘overly-prescriptive’ laws

MISSISSAUGA – Criticism of Telus Corp.’s location data program, used by the federal government during the COVID-19 pandemic, was fueled by misinformation because the media and politicians put their own spin on data use, according to the company’s chief data and trust officer. At the same time, Pamela Snively also called on telecom companies to build better trust with consumers when it comes to data collection. “Quite frankly, we spent years focused on how to do this in a privacy-preserving manner. We consulted experts on de-identification methodology. We designed a very robust privacy governance program and governance framework around the entire platform as well as the program that we were developing. And we obtained privacy by design certification,” Snively said Wednesday during a keynote address on trust in technology and data collection at the 2022 Canadian Telecom Summit. Snively criticized media outlets and politicians for “putting their own spin” on Telus’ data program. The program was used during the pandemic to track the movement of millions of devices to understand population movements during lockdown. “There was a new level of scrutiny on the program which was being fed by misinformation. I found myself defending the program’s trustworthiness repeatedly countering that misinformation and finding it difficult to have fact driven discussions at that point in the pandemic,” she said Snively said she brought up the controversy surrounding Telus’ data program to demonstrate that there is an increased “weaponizing of data practices” – using privacy or an organization's data practices to critique a government policy or an event in an inflammatory way for media attention. “Nobody knows what to believe anymore. Privacy enhancing technologies and governance programs are poorly understood,” she said. “Sound data governance is not an interesting media story. But breaches and misuse of data are – they should be … we need to hear about the breaches and the misuses. But they contribute to the trust deficit that we're experiencing right now in an unbalanced way as we rarely hear about good players or good programs,” according to Snively. The negative messaging around data collection had some benefits, in so far as it encouraged companies to develop even higher standards for data practices and Canadians are becoming more sophisticated in understanding data policies, she said. “We've seen increased scrutiny from regulators also can be a good thing to improve trust. That can be a negative thing if they are only calling out the bad practices and not the good practices, the bad players and not the good players. Again, we need a balanced messaging to our consumers, to Canadians, so that we can actually make informed decisions,” she said. Snively said legislation is popping up all over the world because of a “polarizing data environment.” She critiqued some governments for being overly reactive and too prescriptive in their legislation, arguing that the approach will cause more problems down the road and act as a barrier to innovation. The Telus executive cautioned Canada from going down a similar path. “I think we've had pretty successful legislation within Canada based on principles. And I'm glad to see that we're still continuing to build on those concepts of privacy principles, because that is the way to be more flexible as we go forward. But we need to just make sure it's pragmatic,” she said. Snively said the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) cookie notice requirement is an example of overly-prescriptive legislation that has little impact on privacy. The GDPR requires website owners to obtain explicit consent from end-users before a cookie is activated on the website and collects their information. That policy led to tools like “cookie banners” which informs a user of all cookies and trackers on the website, their purpose, duration and provider, and enables end-users to give their consent to some or all of the cookies. “I don't know that any of us really feel that those are significantly impacting our privacy or making it better but they certainly are making life a bit worse,” she said. She said that the amount of money that went into building the documentation to comply with the cookie requirement could have gone to “so many better purposes for development of a really substantial improvement in privacy” such as privacy-enhancing technologies. “But what I'm worried about is whether or not we're going to end up with legislation that ends up looking a lot more like documentation and substantive changes to the rules,” she said. “We have to be really careful about this polarized environment and figure out how we can balance it a little bit more, and don't end up with that unnecessarily restrictive legislation.” Snively said Telus conducted a survey which found that 30 per cent of Canadians do not trust their telecoms to protect their personal information. Telus also found that one-third of consumers surveyed admitted to regularly giving their telecoms false information. “That’s deeply troubling,” she said. Snively made the case for telecoms to take a more active role in developing better trust with their consumers by arguing it is important for brand loyalty, and more accurate data drives innovation. “There has to be a culture of data that ensures that everyone is thinking about how to use data, how to use it responsibly, how to be transparent about it, how to build well and responsibly with it,” she said. “We have to get out of the silos and we cannot put privacy solely in the domain of the privacy office.” – Reporting by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca and editing by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca UPDATE: The headline has been changed for clarity.

On privacy, Telus exec criticizes media; says Canada should avoid ‘overly-prescriptive’ laws

News | November 23, 2022

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On privacy, Telus exec criticizes media; says Canada should avoid ‘overly-prescriptive’ laws

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