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No Longer Fit for Purpose: Why Canadian Privacy Law Needs an Update

Canada’s private sector privacy law was first introduced 20 years ago, coinciding with the founding of Google and predating Facebook, the iPhone, and the myriad of smart devices that millions of Canadians now have in their homes. Two decades is a long time in the world of technology and privacy and it shows. There has been modest tinkering with the Canadian rules over the years, but my Globe and Mail opinion piece notes the law is struggling to remain relevant in a digital age when our personal information becomes increasingly valuable and our consent models are little more than a legal fiction.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Ethics and Privacy last week released the results of a comprehensive study into Canadian privacy law. The report, which features 19 recommendations, provides Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains with a road map for future reforms (I appeared before the committee as one of 68 witnesses from across the policy spectrum).

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March 6, 2018 — 2 comments — Columns
The CRTC listened intently to the CFRO presentation by Robin Puga (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/8XhHm1

The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 14: Failure To Further the Telecommunications Act Policy Objectives

This series has devoted the past several weeks to making the case that the Bell coalition website blocking plan is a disproportionate, ineffective response to piracy that is out-of-step with global standards, will raise consumer Internet costs, result in over-blocking legitimate content, and that is offside Canadian norms on net neutrality, privacy and human rights. Yet even if the CRTC were to still think this terrible idea is worth supporting, it would fall outside its stated rules on approving website blocking. The Commission has made it clear that it will only permit blocking in “exceptional circumstances” and only where doing so would further the objectives found in the Telecommunications Act.

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March 5, 2018 — 3 comments — News
CC BY-SA 3.0 Nick Youngson / Alpha Stock Images http://thebluediamondgallery.com/p/policy.html

The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 13: It is Inconsistent With the CRTC Policy Direction

Having examined the foundational weaknesses of the Bell coalition’s website blocking plan (existing Canadian law, weak piracy evidence, limited impact) and its negative effects (lack of court orders, overblocking, ineffectiveness, violation of net neutrality, vulnerability on freedom of expression grounds, higher Internet costs, privacy risks), the case against the plan enters the final phase with several posts on how it fails to meet the requirements under the Telecommunications Act.

In 2006, then-Industry Minister Maxime Bernier led the push for a new policy direction to the CRTC on implementing Canadian telecommunications policy objectives. The direction states:

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March 2, 2018 — 3 comments — News
read-2007118_1920 CC0 Creative Commons https://pixabay.com/en/read-learn-school-student-2007118/

Fair Dealing and the Right to Read: The Case of Blacklock’s Reporter v. Canada (Attorney General)

My fair dealing week posts conclude with a look at the link between fair dealing and the fundamental right to read (previous posts focused on the lawsuit to recover overpayments from Access Copyright, the importance of fair dealing for creators, freedom of expression, and news reporting). The critical importance of fair dealing as a user’s right was demonstrated in the 2016 copyright case between the Blacklock’s Reporter, an Ottawa-based online paywalled news site, and the federal government. Blacklock’s, which has filed multiple lawsuits against government departments, sued the Department of Finance for $17,209.10 over two articles that were sent to government officials from a paying subscriber concerned with comments found in the article. The articles were subsequently forwarded to several media relations personnel within the department.

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March 2, 2018 — 2 comments — News
priVacy by Lee Harkness (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/9FZSmo

The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 12: Increasing Privacy Risks for Canadians

The Bell website blocking coalition cites privacy protection as a reason to support its plan, noting the privacy risks that can arise from unauthorized streaming sites. There are obviously far better ways of protecting user privacy from risks on the Internet than blocking access to sites that might create those risks, however. Further, with literally millions of sites that pose some privacy risk, few would argue that the solution lies in blocking all of them. In fact, the privacy argument is not only weak, it is exceptionally hypocritical. Bell is arguably the worst major Canadian telecom company on user privacy and its attempt to justify website blocking on the grounds that it wants to protect privacy is not credible.

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March 1, 2018 — 2 comments — News
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