National consultation on privacy rights and new technologies: a town hall format for committee meetings.

• Author: Steeves, Valerie

Valerie Steeves is Director of the Technology and Human Rights Project at the Human Rights Research and Education Centre at the University of Ottawa. She was a special advisory to the Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Public consultation is crucial to the articulation of appropriate public policy. Laws which are not in line with the public's underlying social values will not be effective. Yet many governments have struggled with exactly how to determine what those underlying social values are. In March 1997, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Persons with Disabilities conducted a national public consultation on privacy rights. This article describes an innovative form of dialogue between parliamentrians and the public designed to encourage a more meaningful two-way discussion of underlying social values and practical policy options.

Parliamentary committees traditionally interact with the public through formal hearings, where intervenors make prepared statements to the full Committee and then respond to questions from members. When the Human Rights Committee began its privacy study in the Spring of 1996, they held a series of traditional hearings during which they heard from a number of experts in the field. What they heard was disturbing. New technologies, such as advanced surveillance techniques, emerging data matching practices and revolutionary forms of genetic testing are each fundamentally challenging our sense of privacy. The Committee became convinced it was essential to explore these issues in depth, not just with the experts, but with the Canadian public.

To do so, they felt it was necessary to abandon the traditional hearing format. They began to look for a more innovative mechanism for dialogue, one which would allow them to raise public awareness of the issues and solicit public opinion about where to draw the line between the benefits of these new technologies and the loss of privacy.

Developing the Model

The Chair of the Committee, Sheila Finestone, suggested they hold a series of town hall meetings across the country. Vice Chair Andy Scott was quick to support the idea. He had had a positive experience with town halls both as a member of the Federal Task Force on Disability Issues and within his own constituency in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The members felt that they had to do more than invite an open discussion with the public. Too often, the debate about technology is framed in the language of technology. The Committee wanted to frame the discussion in a way that would focus not on the technologies themselves, but on the practical implications they have on average Canadians.

To do this, the members decided to centre their town hall discussions on case scenarios, and asked the research staff to develop three case studies focusing on advanced video surveillance, smart cards and genetic testing, respectively. The resulting scenarios or stories creatively illustrated the benefits and the detriments of the technologies in the lives of the ordinary Canadians in the stories and placed the issues firmly within the language of human rights.

One noteworthy aspect of the consultation process was the level of consensus achieved and the degree of collaboration among the members. Their commitment to the educational aspects of the process, both for themselves and...