The Supreme Court of Canada issued another privacy-related decision last week. Not only is it a significant refinement of search and seizure law it is also, with apologies to Pink Floyd, another “brick in the wall” with respect to building privacy rights in the context of computing devices.
The privacy bar sat up and took notice last week of a decision out of Halifax that upped the ante when it comes to PIPEDA damage awards. The case is more about “reprehensible conduct” than “harm suffered” and one question that immediately comes to mind is whether it represents an evolution in judicial thinking about […]
This is a story about a lawyer, his insurer and the Law Society (and, no, it’s not about me). Normally, this is not a topic one sees in this blog but it just happens to involve the latest judicial decision that touches upon what constitutes “commercial activity” for the purposes of PIPEDA. I have to […]
With little fanfare, it appears that Manitoba is the newest province in Canada to enact personal information protection legislation that governs the private sector.
As we mark the technical end of summer, I can’t help but think that we’ve already seen the privacy case of the year. Granted we still have another three months left in 2013 but R. v. Telus has a lot going for it – especially in this increasingly “mobile” world.
I never thought I’d ever mention Kim Kardashian in a blog post but, surprisingly, I find myself doing so in the context of a privacy breach. The “human element” in privacy violations – whether by error or omission in conduct or a willful or deliberate act – plagues organizations subject to breach notification requirements. Leaving aside […]
Readers may recall my post on the subject of R. v. Cole here, a Supreme Court of Canada decision about expectations of privacy in workplace laptops. That decision has been now followed in a recent BC decision and while the facts are not terribly different, it is interesting to see the further application of privacy […]
For those who may be interested, that book I kept rambling on about (and which took me away from blogging) has now been published. The Law of Privacy is available through Lexis Nexis. I’m most grateful to David Loukidelis, the former Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia, who was kind enough to write the forward. […]
I recently came across a calculator while reading a Financial Times article (registration required) on the surveillance of consumers. It shows just how much marketers value our personal data – apparently it’s just pennies and we don’t even have those in Canada anymore. This 2010 Forbes article talks about the monetization of personal data and […]
I’ve written about FATCA before, here and here, with respect to the privacy law implications of this American tax compliance initiative. However, I was recently presented with a letter on the subject that made me pause. A noted Canadian constitutional law expert has raised a rather interesting aspect and it seems what may get Canadian […]
