Last week, in R. v. Reeves, the Supreme Court of Canada clarified the law around an individual’s right to privacy in relation to shared devices, such as personal computers (Justices Côté and Moldaver wrote separate, concurring reasons). In holding that a third party cannot waive an individual’s rights under s. 8 of the Charter of Rights and […] Read more
The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics recently published its December 2018 Report : Democracy under Threat: Risks and Solutions in the Era of Disinformation and Data Monopoly. In late March 2018, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics began a study of the breach of personal […] Read more
On January 1, 2019, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada will begin enforcing Guidelines for obtaining meaningful consent, which impose requirements for obtaining legally valid privacy consents. Compliance with the Guidelines will require many organizations to adjust their personal information practices/procedures and revise their privacy policies and related notifications. Read more
There has been news reports yesterday about a project by Statistics Canada (“StatCan”) to collect information from financial institutions about their customers’ financial transactions. A few clients have reached out asking about StatCan’s authority to request such data. StatCan is relying on Section 13 of the Statistics Act, which appears to grant the institution broad […] Read more
On October 29, 2018 the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (“OPC”) issued a guidance document titled “What you need to know about mandatory reporting of breaches of security safeguards” (the “Guidance”) to help organizations comply with personal information security breach obligations under Canada’s federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”). Commencing […] Read more
J’offrirai une formation de 3 heures au début du mois de novembre en matière de cybersécurité et vie privée des employés. Le vol d’informations confidentielles est un fléau en pleine croissance. Il devient donc essentiel de connaître le cadre juridique, d’identifier les risques afférents et de développer les outils nécessaire afin de protéger les données […] Read more
Commencing January 1, 2019, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada will begin enforcing Guidelines for obtaining meaningful consent, which impose requirements and provide recommendations for private sector organizations to obtain legally valid consent for the collection, use and disclosure of personal information. The Guidelines specify requirements for the form and content of privacy policies/notices and for clear […] Read more
Cyber incident response activities often involve the creation of forensic investigation reports that might be protected by legal privilege, depending on the purpose of the reports and the circumstances surrounding their creation and use. The 2018 Ontario Superior Court decision in Kaplan v. Casino Rama Services illustrates how an organization can lose the right to […] Read more
Business risks resulting from consumer privacy concerns are on the rise. Last week, Facebook and Twitter reported second quarter results which revealed that both companies lost a significant number of active users due to privacy and data protection concerns. Their stock price plummeted by approximately 20 per cent each, resulting in a combined loss in market […] Read more
In its most recent report of findings entitled “Company’s re-use of millions of Canadian Facebook user profiles violated privacy law,” the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (the “OPC”) dealt with the often confusing issue of personal information that is publicly available and confirmed its view that Facebook profiles that are set to public are not considered “publicly […] Read more