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 275: David Loukidelis on Why Stripping Privacy Enforcement from Canada’s Privacy Commissioner in Bill C-36 is Unnecessarily Risky Policy
byMichael Geist

June 22, 2026
Michael Geist
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Recent Posts
Blocked Twice: How Bill C-34’s Kids’ Social Media Ban Would Compound the Online News Act’s Harm to Young Canadians’ News Access
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 275: David Loukidelis on Why Stripping Privacy Enforcement from Canada’s Privacy Commissioner in Bill C-36 is Unnecessarily Risky Policy
The Data on Australia’s Social Media Ban: The Better the Privacy Protection, The Less Effective the Ban
Shaky Ground Gets Shakier: What the U.S. Supreme Court’s Location Data Decision Means for Bill C-22
The Two Weeks That Reshaped Canada’s Digital Policy

