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    NDP MP Charmaine Borg Tries To Kickstart Canada's Dormant Privacy Reform

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    Wednesday February 27, 2013

    As reports of yet another government security breach emerge, NDP MP Charmaine Borg has at least tried to kickstart the government's dormant private sector privacy reform efforts with a private member's bill that would add mandatory security breach disclosure requirements to the law along with new order making power. The government's own privacy reform bill - Bill C-12 - has languished for years with no real effort by Industry Minister Christian Paradis to move it forward. Moreover, the bill has some serious faults, with no penalties for security breach, no update to the Privacy Commissioner's powers, and provisions that make organizations more likely to disclose personal information without warrant during an investigation.

    Bill C-475 is a far better proposal with amendments to PIPEDA with more clear cut security breach disclosure requirements along with order making power that is backed by significant penalties for compliance failures. Those provisions would do far to ensure greater respect for Canadian privacy law and give Canadians the assurance of notifications in the event of security breaches. What the bill does not do, however, is address the other side of the privacy coin, namely the failure of government to hold itself accountable for the personal information it collects and now regularly seems to fail to safeguard.


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    NDP MP Charmaine Borg Raises Concerns Over Watered Down Anti-Spam Regulations

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    Wednesday February 13, 2013
    NDP MP Charmaine Borg, the party's digital issues critic, has written to Industry Minister Christian Paradis to express concern over the draft anti-spam regulations, noting that they appear to circumvent the will of Parliament. The letter cites testimony from Industry Canada officials in 2010, who told the Industry Committee "what the legislation is trying to do is not allow a third party to give express or implied consent on behalf of another person."  Yet despite that position, the department has now proposed a third party referral exception.  Borg notes:

    After defending their decision to exclude a third party referral exception from the bill, Industry Canada officials, two-years later, introduced the very same exception into the regulations. Yet it was the text of Bill C-28 - explicitly excluding a third-party referral exception - that received multi-partisan support in the House, Industry Committee and the Senate.  It appears that in the intervening two years since Bill C-28 received Royal Assent, Industry Canada has decided to regulate around the will of Parliament.


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