VANCOUVER—In a world dominated by data, where information is shared at the speed of a keystroke, Canada’s new justice minister says striking a balance between individual rights and the digital economy is keeping him up at night.

“This is the stuff that I lose sleep over,” David Lametti said in a wide-ranging interview in Vancouver on Tuesday, adding that there’s an “urgent need” to protect personal data, curb online hate speech and violent extremism and stop foreign interference in democratic elections.

“It’s a huge challenge and it’s something that interests me greatly. It’s about privacy, it’s about control over one’s data, but it’s also about being protected from the kind of instantaneous dissemination of hatred that is now possible.”

Lametti, a former McGill University law professor, was named Canada’s justice minister and attorney general on January 14, after B.C. MP Jody Wilson-Raybould was removed from the portfolio.

Earlier Tuesday in Toronto, Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains announced the 10-point digital charter along with the promise of a sweeping review of federal privacy laws, but Lametti could not say when changes in policy or legislation would be rolled out.

A background briefing by officials at the Department of Innovation Science and Economic Development said changes aren’t expected until after the federal election in October.

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Last week at a Paris conference organized by France and New Zealand, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed to support the “Christchurch Call,” where 18 countries pledged to help eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online.

Eight tech and social-media companies, including Facebook, YouTube, Google and Twitter, also agreed to support it.

The conference was organized in the wake of the Christchurch killings, where a gunman used Facebook to live stream his attack on a New Zealand mosque that killed 51 people and injured another 50. The video was immediately reposted on numerous sites and the accused allegedly posted a manifesto beforehand that included conspiracy theories and hateful memes.

“It’s a different world, and so we need to balance individual rights and freedom of expression with protecting communities from being targets of stuff that can easily lead to violence as we’ve seen in a number of places in the world, including Canada,” Lametti said.

In Paris, Trudeau noted Canada’s new digital charter — which had yet to be unveiled — would rein in digital giants such as Facebook or Google and outline expectations on issues such as data ownership, privacy protection and online hate.

Following the charter’s release, Trudeau took aim at tech giants, tweeting that if social media platforms don’t step up their accountability, “there will be consequences.”

Asked whether he would prosecute tech companies in the future, Lametti said the challenge is how to regulate platforms in a borderless digital world, and noted the prime minister said in Paris only that Canada agreed to “find a way.”

“I don’t think he’s articulated a way to do it,” Lametti said. “That’s what is in front of us. The question obviously is how, and with what balances.”

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He said the purpose of Trudeau’s Paris commitment was to begin to share information with France and New Zealand and call on other countries to join the Christchurch Call. Lametti said several solutions are under consideration, from using the courts, changing the criminal code, creating a regulatory body or advancing the powers of existing regulators such as the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.

The path forward requires the protection of Canadians’ personal information in a world where data is a commodity that drives business.

“We are moving into something people are calling surveillance capitalism,” Lametti explained. “All of a sudden there’s this economic model that’s being based on, effectively, the free transfer of data from individuals to platforms.”

He noted that an economic issue has become a justice issue, since it’s affecting the distribution of power and wealth in society. It is “what Minister of Democratic Institutions Karina Gould has talked about,” he added, “the ability to influence and skew democratic debate and discourse and elections.”

As Star Vancouver previously reported in April, Canadian political parties, candidates and staff have been the target of at least one state-sponsored hacking campaign ahead of this year’s federal election.

At the time, Gould said the federal government is looking at several models used by “like-minded” countries such as Australia to curb foreign interference in domestic elections.

She also said Canada is considering regulations for online platforms, and is looking at a code of conduct to require them to report regularly to the government ahead of elections on how they are fighting misinformation and inauthentic behaviour, and shut down known bot accounts or sites used by foreign actors to manipulate opinion.

An analysis of some of the nearly 10 million tweets from thousands of banned accounts — the vast majority originating in Russia — released in recent months by Twitter shows Canadian issues targeted by bots include the anti-vaccine and anti-pipeline movements, and anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigration narratives.

Lametti said the dissemination of hate can be connected to election interference, where bots, hackers or trolls use wedge issues to skew democratic debate and thus voters’ attitudes on ballot-box concerns such as climate change or immigration.

It’s a “large and complex problem,” and that’s why he says he will work alongside the ministries of innovation and democratic institutions.

“We need to be thinking about this in a whole of government fashion,” he said. “We need to be thinking about it seriously. We need to be thinking about it quickly.”

With files from Alex Boutilier and The Canadian Press

Correction — May 23, 2019: This article was edited from a previous version that misstated Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains’ given name.

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