Articles by: Michael Geist

How Canadians Reclaimed the Public Interest on Digital Policy

Appeared in the Toronto Star on November 4, 2012 as How Canadians Reclaimed the Public Interest on Digital Policy The fall of 2007 was a particularly bleak period for Canadians concerned with digital policies. The government had just issued a policy direction to the CRTC to adopt a hands-off regulatory […]

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November 6, 2012 Comments are Disabled Columns Archive

Supreme Court Confirms Privacy Survives in the Workplace

Millions of Canadians go to work each day, turn on their workplace computers, and wonder whether they have also shut off their privacy. Many employers seek to remove any reasonable expectation of privacy by telling employees that they should not expect any privacy when using workplace computers during company time.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court of Canada grappled with the question of workplace privacy and arrived a somewhat different conclusion. My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes it ruled that the workplace environment may diminish an employee’s reasonable expectation of privacy, but it does not remove the expectation altogether.

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November 2, 2012 3 comments Columns

Supreme Court Confirms Privacy Rights Survive in the Workplace

Appeared in the Toronto Star on October 28, 2012 as Supreme Court Confirms Privacy Rights Survive in the Workplace Millions of Canadians go to work each day, turn on their workplace computers, and wonder whether they have also shut off their privacy. Many employers seek to remove any reasonable expectation […]

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November 2, 2012 Comments are Disabled Columns Archive

EU Drops Demands for Inclusion of ACTA’s Criminal IP Provisions in CETA

Reports this morning from EDRI, a European digital rights group, indicate that Europe has now dropped demands to include ACTA-style intellectual property criminal provisions within the Canada – EU Trade Agreement. The inclusion of IP criminal provisions in CETA was the source of considerable outrage in Europe in the aftermath […]

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November 1, 2012 3 comments News

Government To Delay Implementation of Bill C-11’s Internet Provider Rules

The government is slated to bring Bill C-11, the copyright reform bill, into effect next week without the “notice-and-notice” rules for Internet providers. The revelations come in a Privy Council document that provides notification on when the bill will come into force. It is expected that the order bringing the […]

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October 31, 2012 4 comments News