Michael Geist

Latest Posts

Is Canada’s Privacy Law A Privacy Placebo?

Professor Geist’s regular Toronto Star Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, HTML backup article, homepage version) questions the effectiveness of Canada’s privacy legislation, arguing that privacy laws without effective enforcement and genuine transparency may provide Canadians with little more than placebo privacy protection. The column suggests that responsibility for these […]

April 19, 2004 — Comments are Disabled — Columns

Privacy Law Can’t Protect People From Own Ignorance

Heather Black, Canada’s Assistant Privacy Commissioner, has provided an update on Canada’s privacy legislation. Black notes that there may be a communications gap between business and consumers but adds that "there’s really a limit to how far we can go to protect people from their own ignorance." Professor Geist comments […]

April 14, 2004 — Comments are Disabled — News

Canada To Launch Anti-Spam Task Force

The National Post reports that the Canadian government plans to launch as task force to address spam. Professor Geist comments on the need for more aggressive enforcement actions against Canadian-based spamming organizations. see: Government Task Force To Launch Attack on Spam also see: BC Order

April 13, 2004 — Comments are Disabled — News

Alberta and BC Privacy Laws Meet Substantial Similarity Test

Industry Canada has released exemption orders for both Alberta and British Columbia, finding that their private sector privacy laws meet the substantial similarity test found in the federal privacy law. The finding means that that organizations in the two provinces will not be subject to the federal private sector privacy […]