GATINEAU – After being told in a letter from CRTC staff that the Commission would not be pursuing an investigation into contact-tracing applications, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre today demanded certain procedural rights its original application requires.
First, PIAC notes the CRTC has not yet posted the May 4 application publicly on its website, which is required by section 23 of its Rules of Practice and Procedure and wants to see it on crtc.gc.ca immediately.
Plus, the advocacy group said it wants the full Commission, not just staff, to issue a ruling on its application, which was opposed by Rogers, Bell and Telus. “Staff does not have the power to ‘not consider’ a duly filed Application. In our view, it is legally filed and not yet dealt with by the Commission, which has the sole power to rule on Rogers’ request,” reads PIAC’s letter today.
While CRTC staff can make some determinations, they don’t have the power to “suspend consideration,” it adds.
There is some wording in section 55 of the Telecom Act that lets the CRTC do “anything else necessary for the exercise of its powers and the performance of its duties,” but “PIAC presumes… the Commission may therefore suspend ‘consideration’ of the application as a form of adjournment… if it would be ‘in the public interest’. For the reasons given in the Application, PIAC does not believe that it would be in the public interest to adjourn our Application,” continues the letter.
The interveners, as well as the CRTC, pointed to the fact Canada’s privacy commissioners are already looking into contact tracing apps as a reason the CRTC does not need to step into this subject with its own investigation. PIAC again quotes the Telecom Act which says: “The power of the Commission to hear and determine a question of fact is not affected by proceedings pending before any court in which the question is in issue,” which it says should apply the privacy commissioners, too.
“Therefore PIAC requests that the Commission rule on Rogers’ request that the Commission dismiss our Application without process or a hearing. We submit that to do so, the Commission would have to meet a very, very, very high bar indeed. This is because the CRTC has a special jurisdiction to protect confidential customer information derived from the use of cellphones and the Internet and telephone networks. This jurisdiction has, until now, been jealously guarded by the Commission.”
