The following editorial appeared in the Globe and Mail 5 November 1999
Unlock the past
For the sake of the future
Granting access to ancient census data
Is a public good, not a personal harm
Privacy Commissioner Bruce Phillips is a man with a mission.
He wants to protect the personal privacy of Canadians --- even those who are dead. He worries about the “struggle” to protect privacy “under the onslaught of new information technology.” He’s fond of pronouncements such as: “Human values, not technology, must drive the bus.”
It is reassuring to have a tenacious watchdog barking at electronic snoops and championing the passage of privacy legislation such as Bill C-6, which will require businesses to obtain individual consent before they collect, use or disclose personal information.
Sometimes, though, Mr. Phillips is such a zealous defender of his mandate that he defies common sense. For example, he seems determined to safeguard the privacy rights of long dead citizens by preventing access to legitimate scholars trying to conduct research into our collective past.
The case in point involves the 1906 census. Apparently, Sire Wilfrid Laurier, the prime minister of the day, had made a pact with the fledgling provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan that the detailed data from the special census being conducted in 1906 would never become public.
Nobody knows specifically why he made the promise – perhaps it had something to do with cooling passions that wer still inflamed over the Riel rebellions, or maybe he wanted to offer suspicious Westerners a sop to ease their entry into Confederation. Whatever the reason for the embargo, it became part of the Census and Statistics Act of 1906 and was rolled into its successor, the Census Act of 1918.
Mort than 90 years have passed, yet the detailed surveys so important to historical analysis cannot be used unless the pertinent sections of the old act are repealed. This is a simple proposition, but, unaccountably, our privacy watchdog argues to keep the old detailed data secret. This serves no useful purpose and it make the Privacy commissioner look silly.
The risks of making information available – whether it is giving health-care workers access to medical data or historians searching immigration and settlement patterns – must be weighd against the benefits. Blanket embargoes in the face of vague concerns about what might happen if… are alarmist and counterproductive.
Personal privacy threatens to become another bugaboo. Increasing use of the Internet for commercial transactions and the proposed introduction of smart cards in Ontario raise important issues about informed consent, the security of files and data processing and transmission. But the issues are not insoluble.
Personal information should be protected to safeguard the identity and privacy of individuals, not to prevent social historians from drawing a portrait of the past based on detailed data about births, deaths and occupations. Making this information available from the 1906 Census after 90 years is an opportunity, not a problem. Change the law.
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