It was announced yesterday that the Federal Court of Canada has certified the privacy class-action lawsuit involving 40,000 people which pertains to the medical marijuana access program. The case was launched in 2013 after Health Canada sent letters to people with the program’s name on the envelope. The envelope containing the letter explicitly identified the “Marihuana Medical Access Program” in […] Read more
I came across an article yesterday in which the Ottawa police is saying that filming women in public is not necessarily illegal. While it may be true that nothing prohibits filming or taking someone’s picture in public, in some jurisdictions, it may be illegal to publish / post the picture or movie online without that person’s prior […] Read more
When managing access rights, organisations should take note that while the access right has to be provided for free, it is possible for an organisation to charge a reasonable amount for a copy (photocopy) of the documents requested. What is considered a “reasonable amount”? A local paper reported yesterday a recent case (June 2015) in which the […] Read more
I recently summarized the state of recent privacy class actions in Canada: the cases that are either pending or which were recently authorized. There has recently been an update in the Condon v. Canada case, which pertains to an action taken following the announcement in late 2012 that Human Resources and Skills Development Canada had lost an […] Read more
Many organizations remain very broad in their website privacy policies on the use made of the information collected. Recent bill S-4, the Digital Privacy Act, the federal government’s latest attempt to reform PIPEDA was proclaimed last month and proposes a revised “valid consent” provision (PIPEDA, s. 6.1), by shifting from a subjective standard to a more objective standard. To […] Read more
I posted a blog a few months ago about Health-tracking bracelets and privacy issues and raised the fact that health information collected by these self-tracking devices may be used as evidence in a litigation. Kashmir Hill published a piece today entitled “Fitbit data just undermined a woman’s rape claim“. Apparently, according to ABC 27, a woman handed the username and […] Read more
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) today announced that airline company Porter Airlines Inc. agreed to pay $150,000 as part of an undertaking for alleged violations of Canada’s anti-spam legislation (CASL). It is reported that once made aware of the investigation by the CRTC, the airline company was cooperative and immediately took corrective actions to comply […] Read more
Douez launched a class-action lawsuit in Vancouver against Facebook for breach of privacy over their “Sponsored Stories” program which is now defunct. She was arguing that the program manipulated users for commercial gain and that it was violating Facebook users’ privacy by using their photos in commercial ads without their prior consent. In a decision issued today, the B.C. […] Read more
Bill S-4, the Digital Privacy Act, the federal government’s latest attempt to reform PIPEDA was proclaimed earlier today. I had testified on S-4 back in March, so for my thoughts on this Bill, please click here. You will find a summary of the Bill below: New breach notification requirement Notification and reporting was voluntarily effected based on […] Read more
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner recently issued a finding pertaining to Romania-based website Globe24h.com which is republishing Canadian court decisions, allowing them to be indexed by search engines, and demanding a fee for them to be removed. This website received a great deal of media attention in the last year. Apparently, 27 complaints were filed […] Read more