Guests are welcomed by people in Facebook shirts as they arrive at the Facebook Canadian Summit in Toronto on Wednesday, March 28, 2018. The government of Canada has been increasing its use of paid Facebook advertisements over the last three years, spending tens of millions of dollars on boosted posts, videos and ad campaigns, according to new figures tabled in parliament. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Donovan
A committee of MPs is calling on the federal government to make Canada's political parties subject to federal privacy laws.
The House of Commons ethics committee makes the recommendation in a report released today about its investigation into a Facebook data scandal.
Nearly 87 million users, including 622,161 Canadians, had their information accessed by the U.K. firm Cambridge Analytica without authorization, allegedly using the information for political gain in the Brexit referendum, as well as in Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The committee report says the evidence heard during hearings gives rise to grave concerns that Canada's electoral process would be similarly vulnerable.
The committee is urging the government to act urgently to regulate organizations and political actors to force them to better disclose how they use personal information, including how they target and profile Canadians.
Privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien says political parties are only bound by internal, voluntary policies, and wants the government to close what he sees as a gap in federal privacy laws.
