In time for Data Privacy Day 2009, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has released new Guidelines for Processing Data Across Borders. The guidelines provides background on leading PIPEDA decisions.
Archive for January, 2009
New Brunswick Court of Appeal Rules Fed Court Proper PIPEDA Forum
All About Information posts on a recent New Brunswick Court of Appeal decision that held that the Federal Court is the proper forum for a challenge to the powers of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada under PIPEDA.
Budget 2009 – Money for Broadband, Part Two
In the dying days of the fall election campaign, the Conservatives promised to spend $100 million per year for five years on broadband deployment in rural areas starting in 2010. While the budget moves that spending up a year, it commits less money – $75 million per year for three […]
Budget 2009 – Money for Broadband
The Department of Finance website is pitifully slow, but it appears that the government is committing $225 million over the next three years for broadband to unserved communities. By comparison, the Australian government has committed AU$4.7 billion to a similar initiative.
Why the U.S. Lost Its WTO IP Complaint Against China. Badly.
The World Trade Organization yesterday released its much-anticipated decision involving a U.S. complaint against China over its protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights. The U.S. quickly proclaimed victory, with newspaper headlines trumpeting the WTO panel's requirement that China reform elements of its intellectual property laws. For its part, China was conciliatory and offered to work with the international community to resolve the concerns raised by the decision. Reuters notes that the Chinese reaction is far less combative than it has been other issues.
Why the muted response? I suspect that it is because anyone who bothers to work through the 147 page decision will find that the headlines get it wrong. The U.S. did not win this case, but rather lost badly. China is required to amend elements of its copyright law, but on the big issues of this case – border measures and IP enforcement – almost all of the contested laws were upheld as valid. Further, the ramifications of this case extend well beyond China's laws into other areas such as ACTA, since it points to the considerable flexiblity that countries have in meeting their international obligations on these issues.
The case centred on three key issues:
Recent Posts
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 200: Colin Bennett on the EU’s Surprising Adequacy Finding on Canadian Privacy Law 
Debating the Online Harms Act: Insights from Two Recent Panels on Bill C-63 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 199: Boris Bytensky on the Criminal Code Reforms in the Online Harms Act 
AI Spending is Not an AI Strategy: Why the Government’s Artificial Intelligence Plan Avoids the Hard Governance Questions 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 198: Richard Moon on the Return of the Section 13 Hate Speech Provision in the Online Harms Act
