Professor Geist has released a report, co-authored with Milana Homsi examining the effect of U.S. law, particularly the Patriot Act, on Canadian privacy law. The report comes in response to concerns in British Columbia over a proposed government outsourcing of health data. The report conclusions have implications for any outsourcing to a company with U.S. connections from a country with strong privacy laws as we find that several U.S. statutory provisions provide U.S. courts with the power to order secret disclosures from both U.S. companies with foreign subsidiaries and foreign companies with U.S. subsidiaries and that current Canadian privacy law can do little to stop such disclosures.
Patriot Act and B.C. Privacy Submission Posted
July 26, 2004
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