Industry committee  Yes, thank you. For the example you used of a warranty or some form of communication relevant to a product, there are two possibilities. First of all, there could have been express consent when someone bought the product that they always wanted to have information on warranties, or anything related to the safety of a product, or anything along those lines.

Industry committee  It was in 2004.

Industry committee  Clause 6, yes, you're correct. Paragraph 6(5)(b) talks about an exception when the e-mail is sent to a person who is engaged in a commercial activity and consists solely of an inquiry or application related to that activity. So I simply point out the qualification there, that this has to be a commercial activity in which there is a purpose that is, I guess, mutually shared between the two individuals.

Industry committee  The origins of the bill actually go back to the work of the spam task force, as one of the members mentioned.

Industry committee  Thank you. The one common denominator that has come out of work in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which started an examination of spam and other harmful activity on the Internet a few years ago, was that you need a combination of tools, legal and technical, to deal with spam.

Industry committee  Thank you. It certainly is a valid point that spam is a global problem and that legislation therefore has to take account of international arrangements, as well as put forward the right legal powers to tackle spam domestically. The example of Australia is a good one. They've tried to make sure their domestic rules, through an Australian link, apply with respect to international origins of spam.

Information & Ethics committee  We know about the study that you mentioned, and yes, if I had enough hair, mine would stand up on end also. It is discouraging to hear the results of the poll like that, or the study. What it points to, though, is not only the definition of consent, because that's certainly part of it, but it's also a question of how aware organizations are of their responsibilities under the legislation, whether it's provincial or federal, and that's something we need to address.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, it does.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, the federal act applies to banks, broadcasters, and so forth.

Information & Ethics committee  We certainly can provide some indication of where provincial privacy acts--except for Quebec's, of course, which came after the federal law--have addressed some issues, like the work product issue, in interesting ways, which you might want to look at, based on what you hear from other witnesses.

Information & Ethics committee  Always! You are correct.

Information & Ethics committee  In some cases there is an issue around what constitutes lawful authority. As we said earlier, the act is pretty clear that if you have lawful authority for that information as part of an investigation of criminal activity, national security, or whatever, those requirements are above the protection of personal information.

Information & Ethics committee  That question has to do with the federal act. If a provincial law was not considered substantially similar, the federal act would continue to apply within the province and organizations would not be excluded from the federal act's application. If I can continue in the other language, I would say that it's more a question of the federal law and whether it would exempt organizations, rather than whether the provincial law would continue to apply.

Information & Ethics committee  So there would be a fundamental change to how the act operates, because it does operate now under the ombudsman model, with the Federal Court being the instrument the Privacy Commissioner uses to go after, as I said before, very deliberate and intentional violations of the act. So it's very much the order-making or oversight and redress issue that we talked about earlier.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, such as the health sector. There are a number of areas. Any area where information is not defined as commercial cannot be captured by PIPEDA. Therefore, there are areas that—