Professor Geist’s regular Toronto Star Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, HTML backup article, homepage version) questions the effectiveness of Canada’s privacy legislation, arguing that privacy laws without effective enforcement and genuine transparency may provide Canadians with little more than placebo privacy protection. The column suggests that responsibility for these issues rests with both the Privacy Commissioner’s Office and the Canadian government. also see: BC Order
Is Canada’s Privacy Law A Privacy Placebo?
April 19, 2004
Share this post

Law Bytes
Episode 277: Kate Robertson on the Risks That Lie Behind Canada's Unexpected Signing of the UN Cybercrime Convention
byMichael Geist

June 22, 2026
Michael Geist
Search Results placeholder
Michael Geist on Substack
Recent Posts
From CCH to ChatGPT: How Canadian Copyright Law Played the Key Role in Deciding a Leading AI Training Data Case in India
Starting Over: Court Filing Confirms the CRTC’s Streamer Contribution Decisions Are Dead With a Full Online Streaming Act Reset to Come
The Name on the Window Was Enough: The Attacks on Kiva’s and the Normalization of Antisemitic Violence in Canada
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 277: Kate Robertson on the Risks That Lie Behind Canada’s Unexpected Signing of the UN Cybercrime Convention
A Surveillance Treaty in Disguise: The Trouble With Canada’s Quiet Decision to Sign the UN Cybercrime Convention
