The Canadian Journalism Foundation and CIPPIC partnered on a terrific event yesterday on privacy and freedom of expression in the digital age. The event, held at the Globe and Mail Centre in Toronto, focused on the right to be forgotten. It included conversations with Privacy Commissioner of Canada Daniel Therrien, Google’s Peter Fleischer, and a debate between David Fraser and Keith Rose. I was featured on the final panel in a conversation with the Globe and Mail’s Susan Krashinsky Robertson. The discussion, embedded below, focused on a wide range of privacy issues, including the need to update PIPEDA, pressure from the EU to improve Canada’s privacy law, how to foster meaningful consent, and the right to be forgotten.
Archive for April, 2018
Quebec Digital Sales Tax Plan Shows It Is Easier Said Than Done
Government officials and cultural groups in Quebec have been banging the drum for much of the past year for the imposition of digital sales taxes on services such as Netflix. The debate is often framed around the notion that Netflix and other Internet companies should be collecting sales tax like any other service provider. Supporters argue that other countries have begun to levy sales taxes on digital services and Canada should do the same.
My Globe and Mail op-ed notes the federal government has sent mixed signals to date, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rejecting new taxes on the grounds that Canadians “pay enough for the Internet”, Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly seemingly keeping the door open to new taxes, and Finance Minister Bill Morneau committing to studying the issue while international standards develop.
Coming Soon (or at least by November): Government Sets a Date for Data Breach Disclosure Rules To Take Effect
Several years after passing into law, the Canadian government has finally set an effective date for long-overdue data breach disclosure rules. The requirements were included in the Digital Privacy Act that was passed in 2015, but the accompanying regulations literally took years to finalize. Earlier this year, I argued that the failure to expedite security breach disclosure rules was an embarrassing failure for successive Conservative and Liberal governments, placing the personal information of millions of Canadians at risk and effectively giving a free pass to companies that do not adequately safeguard their customers’ information.
Telus’ Website Blocking Submission: No Copyright Expertise Needed and No Net Neutrality Violation if Everyone is Doing It
Telus was not a charter member of the Bell website blocking coalition, but there was never much doubt that the last of the big incumbents would side with the application. Most of the independent and smaller telecom companies have opposed the proposal (and even the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association cannot bring itself to state that it supports the plan), but Canada is not known for competition among the big incumbents and this issue was no different. Indeed, the Telus submission supports the application, but relies on remarkably weak and somewhat head-scratching analysis to arrive at its conclusion that the proposal meets the necessary legal standards.
Canadian Copyright Law Review Takes Shape: Report Not Expected Until 2019
The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology outlined its plans for the review of the Copyright Act last week. The committee expects the review to run into next year, with the hope of completing the hearings by early 2019. The hearings will unfold in three phases:
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
