The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has released a consultation paper that signals a major shift in its position on data transfers, indicating that it now believes that cross-border disclosures of personal information require prior consent. The approach is a significant reversal of longstanding policy that relied upon the accountability principle to ensure that organizations transferring personal information to third parties are ultimately responsible for safeguarding that information. In fact, OPC guidelines from January 2009 explicitly stated that “assuming the information is being used for the purpose it was originally collected, additional consent for the transfer is not required.”
Archive for April 10th, 2019

Law Bytes
Episode 278: Ben Waldman on Gander Social and the Challenges of Building a Sovereign Social Network
byMichael Geist

August 10, 2026
Michael Geist
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Michael Geist on Substack
Recent Posts
An AI Transparency Act for Canada: My Submission to the Government’s AI Transparency Consultation
Not If, But When: The Yom Kippur Terror Attack in Belleville
A Canary’s Song: What Antisemitism Reveals About the Health of Canadian Democracy
Elbows Up With Europe Too: Why Canada’s Pivot to the EU Raises the Same Digital Sovereignty Questions as the U.S.
A Century After Keeping Jewish Students Out, Universities Are Letting Them Be Pushed Out

