International Law

Canadian Privacy Law Blog turns six years old

On January 2, 2004, the first post for the Canadian Privacy Law Blog went live (though it was called "PIPEDA and Canadian Privacy Law" at the time.

Looking back to 2004, I had become an avid reader of legal blogs that were already being put out there and wanted to join the conversation. Many were such fantastic resources for a practitioner who needed to keep on top of developments in the law. At the time, privacy law was the most rapidly developing and it seemed a natural fit.

When I first clicked "Publish Post", I really hoped that I'd be able to keep at it. My greatest fear was, aside from not making a positive contribution, was joining the thousands of others who had abandoned blogs after a brief flurry of activity. My expectations have been greatly surpassed. Blogger tells me this will be the 3052nd posting to the Canadian Privacy Law Blog.

I'd like to thank the many people who read this blog regularly and subscribe to the RSS feed. I hope that it has proven to be of value to lawyers and others who have an interest in what I feel is one of the most interesting areas of the law. The tempo of developments in privacy law has varied and so has my posting frequency, but I plan to keep at it.

I thought it may be interesting to look at the top ten most read posts of 2009. Two topics that got a lot of attention in 2009, lawful access and social networking, weren't really on the radar in 2004.

1. European court rules that photo without consent is breach of privacy and human rights
2. Police get warrantless access to Sympatico customer's data
3. Privacy Commissioner to accept Fracebook's friend request
4. Lawful access to ISP subscriber information reintroduced
5. Cheating husband caught on Google Street View
6. New decision on warrantless access to ISP customer data
7. Mind your trash
8. 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know
9. Quebec movie theatre ordered to pay $10K in damages for bag search
10. Commissioner taking Air Canada to court over customer access to info

There's a lot going on in the arena of privacy law and I hope this blog has been of assistance in keeping on top of it.

(Birthday cake graphic used under a creative commons license from K. Pierce.)

Full post as published by The Canadian Privacy Law Blog on January 02, 2010 (boomark / email).