2014
News
The Eighteenth Annual Canadian IT Law Association Conference
Éloïse Gratton October 10, 2014
The Eighteenth Annual Canadian IT Law Association Conference is taking place in Montreal, on October 20 and 21st 2014. I will be moderating a panel on Cybersecurity: Mitigating Business Risk on the 20th, 4:00 to 5:30pm. Speakers on the panel include Russell Cohen, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP (San Francisco), Dr. Avner Levin, Director, Privacy & Cybercrime […] Read more
Legal News
Female Judge Victim of Revenge Porn
Éloïse Gratton October 9, 2014
There was an article today about a Canadian woman judge who stands to lose her job because her husband shared naked photos of her online without her knowledge or permission. A complaint against her argued that the photos could be seen as inherently contrary to the image and concept of integrity of the judiciary… Sexually explicit […] Read more
Legal News
Supreme Court of Canada rules on the issue of “credit charges” pursuant to the Consumer Protection Act
Éloïse Gratton October 8, 2014
The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) has recently ruled on the issue of “credit charges” pursuant to the Consumer Protection Act and the issuance of punitive damages in Bank of Montreal v. Marcotte, as well as the two companion cases, Marcotte v. Fédération des caisses Desjardins du Québec, and Amex Bank of Canada v. Adams. In […] Read more
News
The growing problem of identity theft and mandatory breach notification
Éloïse Gratton October 6, 2014
Last spring I was invited to testify and present with Dr. Avner Levin before the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, House of Commons, in the context of their study conducted on the “Growing Problem of Identity Theft and its Economic Impact“. I discussed why there are no real incentives for Canadian businesses to […] Read more
News
Officers wearing body cameras: the beginning of a surveillance state?
Éloïse Gratton October 5, 2014
I came across an article today about Toronto police officers which will soon begin to wear body cameras as part of a pilot project in December. This project is launched in response to the growing number of accusations of citizens claiming that police officers use excessive force or acted inappropriately with them. Given that citizens […] Read more
Legal News
Should Facebook access your health information?
Éloïse Gratton October 3, 2014
A recent article reports that Facebook is considering its first steps into the field of health care: it is exploring creating online support communities that would connect Facebook users suffering from various diseases or chronic ailments. Facebook would also be exploring new “preventative care” apps that would help users improve their lifestyles. Interesting benefits One one hand, without any doubt, there could […] Read more
News
SaskTel also releases its transparency report
Éloïse Gratton October 2, 2014
In response to concerns about widespread Internet surveillance by police and law enforcement agencies, many Canadian telcos have been releasing their transparency reports for 2013. Rogers released its report earlier this year and Telus issued its 2013 transparency report a few weeks ago. It is now for SaskTel to release its transparency report. The SaskTel report confirms that in 2013, SaskTel […] Read more
News
Facebook user mood experiment: unethical and also illegal?
Éloïse Gratton October 1, 2014
Last summer, it was revealed that Facebook had manipulated its users’ feeds to run a psychological experiment. A report titled “Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks” was published, which disclosed that in 2012, Facebook manipulated the news feeds of 689,003 users to see if the emotion they picked up through the content on […] Read more
Legal News
How to write a good privacy policy: lessons from the Article 29 WP
Éloïse Gratton September 28, 2014
At the beginning of 2012, Google announced that it would be adopting one single privacy policy across all of its various services. Immediately, the EU data protection authorities launched an investigation to assess the compliance of Google’s privacy policy with the European Data Protection legislation. The Article 29 Working Party (WP29) (European data protection authorities), […] Read more
News
A picture is worth a thousand words
Éloïse Gratton September 26, 2014
A Court decision was rendered in Quebec city earlier this week, granting damages to a woman wearing a niqab and her husband under the right to one’s image. The facts are as follows: the editor of a magazine about immigrants in Quebec city took a picture of a woman wearing a niqab in a flea market and used it to […] Read more