Post Tagged with: "therrien"

Bell by Mike Schaffner (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/g4EcLg

Why the Privacy Commissioner Doesn’t Need Legal Reforms To Require Transparency Reports

Privacy Commissioner of Canada Daniel Therrien was in the news this week as he expressed concern with the evasiveness of Canada’s spy agencies and the ongoing refusal of some of Canada’s telecom companies (namely Bell) to issue transparency reports. I’ll have more to say about privacy and government agencies in my technology law column next week, but on the issue of telecom transparency reports, I believe that Therrien already has the necessary legal mandate to act now. Therrien urged all telecom companies to release transparency reports, noting:

“I think Canadians are telling us, first of all, that they would much prefer that data be shared from telcos to government only with a warrant, with a court authorization. But when that does not happen, Canadians expect that there be transparency…frankly, if there’s not more progress I will continue to call for legislation on this issue.”

I wrote about why Canada’s telecom transparency reporting still falls short late last month, emphasizing that a non-binding approach to transparency reporting has been a failure.

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June 10, 2016 — 4 comments — News
prism privacy by Eric Slatkin (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/eSQeNV

Why The Anti-Terrorism Bill is Really an Anti-Privacy Bill: Bill C-51’s Evisceration of Privacy Protection

“The first and main concern is the privacy issue…since the information is to be shared by different levels of government and different governmental bodies. There is a risk that privacy can be compromised. The more information is transferred and shared, the greater the risk of security of the information.“

Nearly twenty years ago, that was Stephen Harper, then a Reform Party MP warning against the privacy implications of an electronic voter registry and the fear that information sharing within government raised significant privacy concerns. Today, there is a very different Stephen Harper, who as Prime Minister is fast-tracking a bill that eviscerates privacy protections within the public sector.  Much of the focus on Bill C-51 has related to oversight: the government implausibly claims that it increases oversight (it does not), the Liberals say they support the bill but would like better oversight, and much of the NDP criticism has also centered on oversight. Yet with respect to privacy and Bill C-51, lack of oversight is only a part of the problem.

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March 12, 2015 — 35 comments — News
Did you consent to your involvement in this process? by Quinn Dombrowski (CC BY-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/6Ghzp2

Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Marketing Association Take Aim At Digital Privacy Act’s Consent Provision

The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology continues its hearing on the Digital Privacy Act (Bill S-4) yesterday, with appearances from Privacy Commissioner of Canada Daniel Therrien, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and the Canadian Marketing Association. Therrien expressed general support for the bill, but concern with the expanded voluntary disclosure provision.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Marketing Association seemed to take the committee by surprise by criticizing a provision in the bill that clarifies what constitutes meaningful consent. The proposed provision states:

6.1 For the purposes of clause 4.3 of Schedule 1, the consent of an individual is only valid if it is reasonable to expect that an individual to whom the organization’s activities are directed would understand the nature, purpose and consequences of the collection, use or disclosure of the personal information to which they are consenting.

That provision should be uncontroversial given that it only describes what most would take to mean consent, namely that the person to whom the activities are directed would understand the consequences of consent. Indeed, Therrien expressed support for the change, noting:

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February 18, 2015 — 3 comments — News

CBC’s The Current on Canadian Privacy and the New Privacy Commissioner

I appeared this morning on CBC’s The Current to discuss the state of Canadian privacy and the nomination of Daniel Therrien as the new Canadian privacy commissioner. Audio of the segment, which includes George Radwanski and Wayne Easter, here.

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June 3, 2014 — 2 comments — ExtPodcasts

Government Rejected Its Own Committee’s Preferred Candidate for Privacy Commissioner

With Daniel Therrien, the government’s nominee for Privacy Commissioner of Canada, scheduled to appear before the House of Commons Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics committee tomorrow, reports this morning provide new insights into the government’s selection process. Josh Wingrove of the Globe reports that there was a short-list of […]

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June 2, 2014 — 2 comments — News
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