The orderly shutdown of TikTok’s Canadian operations over national security concerns will make it more difficult to force the company to cooperate with privacy investigations, Canada’s privacy commissioner said Tuesday.
Philippe Dufresne testified before MPs on the House of Commons ethics committee who are examining the federal government’s order last month for TikTok Canada to end its operations following a national security review.
The government has not shared the specific national security risks that led to the liquidation order, but has said it will not stop Canadians from using the app.
The company filed papers in Vancouver Federal Court last Thursday to challenge the government’s order.
Dufresne, whose office and provincial counterparts are currently investigating whether TikTok illegally collected and shared information from younger users, said privacy laws allow his office to seek a Canadian court order to force a company to provide evidence and testimony during a investigation.
“Certainly, in terms of binding powers, if there is a refusal to provide us with documentation, it is easier if the organization is in Canada,” where Canadian authorities can enforce that order, he said.
Dufresne said his office, which does not have law enforcement powers, can ask a foreign company to cooperate in an investigation if there is a demonstrable “real and substantial connection to Canada,” such as Canadian users of an app or service.
“The problem could arise in terms of its application,” he said. “If all the assets are in another country, then it becomes a matter of private international law, seeking to have another court, another country, enforce the decision of the Canadian courts.”
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Dufresne told the committee that the government’s liquidation order will not have an impact on its current investigation, which was launched last year along with British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec. He said he expects a final report and recommendations to be released in the coming months.
Canada, the United States and other countries have raised national security concerns about TikTok, whose corporate owner, ByteDance, is based in China and would be subject to Chinese laws requiring the sharing of private information held by Chinese companies if ordered by the government.
The popular social media app faces a possible ban in the United States in January unless ByteDance divests from TikTok. A U.S. appeals court last week upheld legislation that would enforce that ban, but TikTok has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.
U.S. prosecutors have redacted entire sections of court documents to protect what they say is top secret information while defending the law.
Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, whose department carried out the national security review, has repeatedly refused to share information raised by the national security review that led to the decision to order the closure of TikTok Canada, citing national security laws.
Dufresne declined to give an opinion on the government’s decision when pressed by several MPs, saying he has not seen the information the government has and was not notified or involved in the national security review as his office is independent of the government. .
“I think transparency is important,” he told NDP MP Matthew Green, who asked if the government should be more forthcoming about its decision.
“I think the more the public can understand the decisions of the government, the decisions of my office, the better. “There may be some limits in terms of confidentiality, but this is certainly important.”
Federal and provincial privacy commissioners’ investigation into TikTok focuses on whether the company obtained valid and meaningful consent for the collection, use and disclosure of personal information. The commissioners said last February, When announcing the launch of their probe, they focus on younger users given the high use they make of the application compared to other age groups.
Dufresne said Canadian privacy law should be strengthened to give his office enforcement powers after an investigation concludes a company violated the law.
He argued that would help rein in social media and other technology companies seeking to avoid punishment.
“Technology is moving very quickly, websites are evolving very quickly, so we need to be able to implement decisions more quickly,” he said.
An example cited during the meeting was the lack of sanction against Meta, owner of Facebook, for a 2019 privacy investigation which found that the company did not obtain user consent to share information. Dufresne’s office in 2020 asked the Federal Court to enforce its conclusionsbut the commissioner said no sanctions have been issued to date.
Meanwhile, Meta agreed Tuesday to settle a class-action lawsuit in Quebec for its data-sharing practices for $9 million, while refusing to admit wrongdoing.
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