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.
My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, Ottawa Citizen version, homepage version) builds on the CRTC's announcement last week that the national do-not-call registry (DNC) will be operational by September 30th. I report that the CRTC also recently affirmed the ability for Canadians to use third-party websites - particularly iOptOut.ca - to opt-out telemarketing calls from organizations that are currently exempt under the law.
Last March, I established iOptOut.ca, a website that enables Canadians to opt-out of many exempted organizations with a few easy clicks at no cost. Visitors to the site are asked to enter their phone number (and email address if they wish) and to indicate their calling preferences for nearly 150 organizations. The public reaction has been extremely supportive. Since its launch, the site has sent out millions of opt-out requests on behalf of tens of thousands of Canadians. The reaction from several leading associations has been less enthusiastic. Within weeks of its debut, both the Canadian Marketing Association and the Canadian Bankers Association sent letters to CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein complaining about the service and seeking support for their position that requests generated from the site were invalid. In fact, the CMA sent a notice to its members stating that "it is the view of the Association that members need not honour do-not-call requests that originate from the organization in question."
Von Finckenstein recently responded to the letters (CMA letter, CBA letter - posted with CRTC permission) with an unequivocal rejection of the complaints, providing a clear indication that failure to honour the opt-out requests could lead to significant penalties (companies face penalties of up to $15,000 per violation under the law). The response begins by noting that the DNC rules require "all telemarketers to maintain internal do-not-call lists and to abide by consumers' requests not be called" and that "there is no prohibition on consumers making such a request through a third party." The response also dismisses concerns of false registrations and affirms that "a consumer can make a do not call request to an organization even though the consumer does not have an existing business relationship with that organization."
Having established that consumers have the right to opt-out in a manner consistent with iOptOut.ca, the von Finckenstein response concludes that "to the extent that these requests are sent to organizations that engage in telemarketing, and that are therefore subject to the rules regarding do not call lists, these requests would be in compliance with the Act and the current Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules as outlined above. In short, on the basis of the facts as I understand them and have stated above, I consider that do not call requests made through iOptOut are valid and should be honoured."
The CRTC response sends a strong signal of its determination to fully enforce the DNC. The CMA and CBA may not like Canadians' newfound ability to stop telemarketing calls through the DNC and iOptout.ca, but the law - and the CRTC - says that they're going to have to live with it.
The CRTC has today confirmed that the national do-not-call registry will launch by September 30th. Given the number of exempt organizations - registered charities, political parties, polling companies, newspapers, businesses with a prior business relationship - Canadians will still need to individually opt-out of hundreds of additional organizations for the phone to stop ringing. iOptout.ca, which has processed millions of these individual opt-out requests since its launch in the spring, will come out of beta in time for the CRTC launch and will be ready to piggyback the CRTC's DNCL with the possibility of signficant penalties for those organizations who do not respect the opt-out requests. More on iOptOut's development in the coming weeks.
CIPPIC has filed several more complaints over the use of deep-packet inspection by Canadian ISPs and asked the Privacy Commissioner to investigate ISP use of DPI for behavioural targeting.
The Supreme Court of Canada has rejected the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's appeal in the Blood Tribe case. The case raised questions of solicitor-client privilege in the context of PIPEDA investigations.
Many people have written about a U.S. decision ordering Google to disclose a massive amount of personal information about their users. Many U.S. experts expect the decision to be overturned on appeal.
posted
on Thu. Jul. 3/08
Site Last Updated: 2008-06-03 Copyright (c) 2003 Michael Geist
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