Welcome to PrivacyInfo.ca, a site maintained by Professor Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. The site features summaries of all of the Canadian Privacy Commissioner's decisions under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) . While those decisions are available in full-text on the Commissioner's site, this site provides additional search functionality, including full-text searches as well as searching by individual provisions, sector, and outcome.
The site also contains links to Canadian privacy legislation, privacy law news, and other resources. For regular updates of new decisions and additions to the site, click here.
This site is not affiliated in any way with the Canadian Privacy Commissioner's office. It is provided for informational purposes only and should not be treated or relied upon as legal advice.
Regular readers of my work will know that I have been frustrated by Canada's do-not-call list, which contains far too many exceptions and has taken an embarrassingly long time to become operational. In response, today I am launching iOptOut, a website that will allow Canadians to opt-out of further phone calls (and emails) from dozens of organizations with a single click.
I began to develop the site soon after the do-not-call bill became law. The premise is simple - under the law, exempted organizations (which include charities, political parties, polling companies, newspapers, and companies with a prior business relationship) are permitted to make unsolicited telephone calls despite the inclusion of a number in the do-not-call registry. However, organizations must remove numbers from their lists if specifically requested to do so.
IOptOut takes advantage of this approach by allowing Canadians to create and manage a personal do-not-call list that begins where do-not-call legislation ends. Registrants are able to view a categorized list of organizations where they can opt-out of further contact. To do this, the site sends an email notification to each organization requesting that registrants' name, email address and phone number(s) be removed from their active marketing lists. The site includes a full FAQ, a blog on the latest do-not-call developments, and wiki that allows users to identify new organizations to include in the iOptOut database. Users have the choice of keeping their personal data on file to update their opt-outs as new organizations are added or to delete it completely within 24 hours. More details at the site, which is a work-in-progress, so suggestions are welcome.
A reader points to the H&R Block Canada privacy policy, which includes the following gem for Canadians handing over their personal tax information:
Due to H&R US's location in the United States, and in instances where your personal information is processed or stored by another affiliate or service provider in the United States, courts or law enforcement or regulatory agencies may be able to obtain disclosure of your personal information under the laws of the United States.
Fresh off the controversy involving Jewish New Year cards, yesterday I received an email from a reader angry over having received a Chinese New Year card from Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The same privacy issues again come to the fore - the person is not Chinese and is upset that the Conservatives apparently have a database that makes assumptions about people based on name or address.
The Canadian Press reports that federal privacy commissioner has quietly dropped her investigation into complaints that Prime Minister Stephen Harper mailed unsolicited Rosh Hashanah greetings, saying she has no jurisdiction over the matter because political parties fall outside Canada's two privacy laws.
Bell Canada has disclosed that it recovered data on 3.4 million customers after the information was stolen four weeks ago. Montreal police have arrested one person.
The CRTC announced yesterday that it plans to delegate enforcement of the do-not-call list. The Commission previously delegated the maintenance of the list itself to Bell Canada.
Following on Privacy Commissioner of Canada Jennifer Stoddart's public letter warning against weakening privacy through copyright reform, a broad coalition of privacy, education, civil liberties groups, and academics have signed a public letter raising similar concerns (I am a signatory).
posted
on Fri. Jan. 25/08
Site Last Updated: 2008-02-04 Copyright (c) 2003 Michael Geist
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