Commons committee calls on Liberals to subject parties to privacy laws
OTTAWA — A committee of MPs is calling on the federal government to make political parties and players subject to federal privacy laws to prevent nefarious actors from manipulating Canadian elections.
Political parties are only bound by internal, voluntary policies — an issue the federal privacy commissioner has identified as a loophole in the law.
How parties use data has been the subject of scrutiny on Parliament Hill and in the U.K. and the U.S. in the wake of a Facebook data scandal where users’ information may have been used without authorization and manipulated for political gain.
In a report released Tuesday, the House of Commons ethics and privacy committee called on the government to move quickly to regulate parties, political organizations and other players to force them to better disclose how they use personal information, including how they target Canadians with ads.