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The Canadian Privacy Law Blog

The Canadian Privacy Law Blog: Developments in privacy law and writings of a Canadian privacy lawyer, containing information related to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (aka PIPEDA) and other Canadian and international laws.

Post Frequency: 2.3/day

Last Entry: October 07, 2020 at 10:02:01

Is the US closer than ever to a general privacy law?

Posted on March 17, 2011
Just more than thirty years after the adoption of the OECD's Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data, the United States seems closer than ever to adopting a general privacy law. Today, before the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Lawrence E...

4Chan founder on privacy online

Posted on March 15, 2011
The founder of the (in)famous 4Chan website, Christopher Poole, has garnered a bit of press recently (including a profile in this month's Vanity Fair), but has also generated a bit of buzz due to his recent presentation given at South By Southwest Interactive about online privacy...

Missing Alberta health care provider hard drive had thousands of patient images

Posted on March 15, 2011
An unencrypted hard-drive has gone missing at Covenant Health in Alberta, leading to an investigation by the province's Information and Privacy Commissioner. The drive, it appears, contained exclusively images, but many of them would be considered to be highly sensitive including video of surgeries...

Most data breaches caused by negligence: Ponemon

Posted on March 14, 2011
The Ponemon Institute has just released its 2010 report on the cost of data breaches (PDF) for organizations, which concludes that the leading cause of breaches is negligence and the average cost of such breaches is $7.2 million. See:Ponemon Cost of a Data BreachThe Ponemon Institute proudly presents the 2010 U...

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IP, privacy and defamation issues for magazine publishers

Posted on March 14, 2011
This afternoon, my partner Rob Cowan (@cowanlaw) and I jointly presented at Magazines East 2011 on legal issues of relevance to magazine publishers, writers, editors and freelancers. We focused on IP law, privacy and defamation. Here's the presentation, in case it's of interest: If the presentation isn't embedded above for you, you can find it here: https://docs...

New European rules on cookies coming in May

Posted on March 09, 2011
The European Union is about to impose a directive effective May 25, 2011 requiring explicit consent for the use of most forms of internet cookies, particularly those that are associated with the delivery of advertising. This tight deadline is being put in place, even though regulators have no idea how to technically make it work...

From Blackberry to Android

Posted on March 07, 2011
Just posted on slaw.ca: A few months ago, I left my Blackberry in favour of an Android device and I thought I'd share my experience for any lawyers out there who have been drooling over the many devices that have been hitting the market in the past while and may be wondering about making the switch...

DHS reportedly seeking covert naked scanners

Posted on March 06, 2011
Computerworld is reporting that the Electronic Privacy Information Center has obtained documents under the Freedom of Information Act that suggest the Department of Homeland Security is on the hunt for portable body scanners. This is not surprising, but what is most chilling is the suggestion that they're seeking devices that can be deployed to covertly see through clothing of unsuspecting people...

Time to check your permissions

Posted on March 06, 2011
Yesterday, a posting by twitter user @warrenehart prompted me to go into my Twitter settings to double-check my sharing settings. Here's what reminded me: http://twitter.com/#!/WarrenEHart/status/44166823645687808 With all the recent scams & malware, worth checking Ur Twitter 3rd Party access: http://twitter...

Nova Scotia Court of Appeal favours open courts over youth privacy in Facebook defamation case

Posted on March 05, 2011
Yesterday, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal issued a decision (AB v Bragg Communications Inc, 2011 NSCA 26) denying a child-plaintiff's application to proceed in a defamation action under a pseudonym and to impose a publication ban on the defamatory materials...

BC NDP demanding social media login credentials

Posted on March 05, 2011
In the last week, there have been reports that the British Columbia New Democratic Party has been demanding the social media login credentials from candidates for the leadership of the party (see: B.C. NDP candidate in social-media standoff with party bosses - The Globe and Mail)...

Is university faculty e-mail subject to access and privacy laws?

Posted on March 02, 2011
Dan Michaluk has just blogged about an interesting case out of Alberta (University of Alberta v. Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner), 2011 ABQB 100) that may have a significant impact on freedom of information law, particularly in universities...

US Supreme Court: Corporations do not have personal privacy rights under US Freedom of Information law

Posted on March 01, 2011
The United States Supreme Court has just ruled today that the personal privacy exemptions in the US Freedom of Information Act do not protect information about corporations. In short, corporations do not have a personal privacy right. This is consistent with the Canadian approach...

Tracking Internet miscreants

Posted on February 28, 2011
A growing portion of my practice is working my the litigators in my firm on cases of online torts, including defamation and harassment. This mainly involves working to track down people who do harmful things under a veil of supposed internet anonymity...

Ryerson University looks to the cloud

Posted on February 24, 2011
Today, I had the great pleasure of being one of the speakers at Ryerson University's broad consultation on the possibility of adopting cloud computing at the university. It was an incredibly high-quality event with a packed auditorium (in the middle of reading week, no less) and a very engaged audience...

Social Media and the Courts

Posted on February 22, 2011
In September of last year, I was honoured to be invited to give a presentation to the Canadian Centre for Court Technology as part of a panel on The Ethical Implications of Technology. My co-panelists were the Assistant Privacy Commissioner Chantal Bernier and Professor Pierre Trudel...

Court Grants Ex Parte Order to Preserve Facebook

Posted on February 21, 2011
Last month, one of my partners made an application before the New Brunswick Court of Queens bench for an unusual ex parte order for the preservation and production of the contents of plaintiff's Facebook account. The order and reasons are here: Sparks v...

Avoid ATM skimmers, use a hotel key card instead

Posted on January 31, 2011
Bank card skimmers and scammers are a pretty resourceful bunch. While people are becoming increasingly vigilant about skimming hardware being covertly added to bank machines, they may not be aware of skimmers being added to card readers that are used for after-hours access to ATMs in bank lobbies...

Personal Health Information Act for Researchers

Posted on January 17, 2011
I was invited to give a presentation to staff and physicians at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax on the impact of the new Personal Health Information Act on researchers and research activities. For anyone who may be interested, here is a copy of the presentation: (If the embedding above is not working for you, this link should take you to the presentation: https://docs...

Nova Scotia review officer considers investigation of WCB over misdirected file

Posted on January 17, 2011
Last week, the Halifax Chronicle Herald reported that the provincial Workers' Compensation Board mistakenly sent the wrong person's file to an individual who was contesting his claim under the program. It looks like it was a one-off error: WCB sends wrong file to man - Metro - TheChronicleHerald...

Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act bill one step closer to (warrantless) surveillance state

Posted on January 15, 2011
Want to know one reason why the Canadian government's proposed Bill C-52, referred to as the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act, is so horrible? Just look at what recently happened in Belarus. According to Boing Boing (Report: Belarusian mobile operators gave police list of demonstrators - Boing Boing), mobile operators in that country have cooperated with the secret police to identify people who were present at an anti-government demonstration...

Your smartphone could be your most dangerous possession, so secure it

Posted on January 14, 2011
After a decision out of California which found that police are able to rummage through all your portable electronics incident to arrest, much attention has been focused on how much data people carry around with in their portable electronics. CNN Money is running a story with the descriptive title: Your smartphone could be your most dangerous possession...

Arizona hospital fires employees for snooping on records of shooting victims

Posted on January 13, 2011
Various media outlets are reporting that the Tucson University Medical Center has fired a number of employees for inappropriate accessing medical records of people involved in the shooting in Arizona that left Rep Gabrielle Giffords gravely injured and six dead...

Profile of Quebec's new access and privacy commissioner

Posted on January 11, 2011
Quebec's new access and privacy commissioner, Jean Chartier, is profiled in the Montreal Gazette: New privacy commissioner to focus on greater access QUEBEC ? Greater access to government information and a preventive approach in privacy protection will be the focus of Jean Chartier, sworn in Tuesday as the province?s new access and privacy commissioner...

Privacy year in review (2010): Caselaw

Posted on January 04, 2011
This is the second in multi-part series of postings looking back at the year 2010 in privacy in Canada. (For an overview of legislative changes, see: Canadian Privacy Law Blog: Privacy year in review (2010): Legislation.) Court Cases State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance v Office of the Privacy Commissioner, 2010 FC 736 This case arose out of a series of complaints brought by one plaintiff?s counsel in New Brunswick against a number of insurers...

Privacy year in review (2010): Legislation

Posted on January 03, 2011
This is the first in multi-part series of postings looking back at the year 2010 in privacy in Canada. Legislation Bill 89: Personal Health Information Act (NS) The Nova Scotia government finally re-introduced the Personal Health Information Act in the fall of 2010, but it's still working its way through the provincial legislature...

Ontario Commissioner to appeal personal email decision

Posted on January 02, 2011
You may recall my recent post on a decision of the Ontario courts that held that a government employee's personal email is outside of the jurisdiction of the Ontario freedom of information laws (Canadian Privacy Law Blog: Ontario access to information decision may affect cloud computing decisions)...

London police claim CCTV solves six crimes a day

Posted on December 28, 2010
Any stats on the effectiveness of video surveillance are hard to find. The Met police in London are claiming that CCTV now accounts for six crimes solved per day: BBC News - "Six crimes a day" solved by CCTV, Met says ... The number of cameras in Britain has gone up from 21,000 in 1999 to 59,753 in 2010, it added...

Class action lawsuit? There?s an app for that

Posted on December 28, 2010
Just posted over at slaw.ca: Class action lawsuit? There?s an app for that ? SlawYou may have seen the recent Wall Street Journal article on the privacy implications of certain iPhone, iPod Touch and Android apps that disclose information to advertising networks without the explicit knowledge of the user...

Interview with EU Privacy Chief

Posted on December 23, 2010
The Washington Post has an interesting interview with the head of privacy for the European Union, highlighting some of the differences between continental and American approaches to consumer privacy. The video and a written summary are here: Post Tech - Video: E...

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