The Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce has spent the past month and a half actively engaged in a detailed study of the regulatory framework for open banking. The study has included government officials, representatives from Australia and the UK, and Canadian banking stakeholders. I appeared before the committee yesterday as a single person panel, spending a full hour discussing a wide range of policy concerns. My core message was that the committee debate over whether Canada should have open banking missed the bigger issue that millions of Canadians already use open banking type services despite the friction in making their data easily portable to third party providers. I recommended several reforms in response, including stronger privacy laws, mandated data portability with informed consumer consent, and consumer protection safeguards that recognizing the likely blurring between incumbent banks and third party providers.
Post Tagged with: "banking"
PIPEDA Hearings – Days 9 (banking industry) and 10 (Chamber of Commerce, Insurance)
The PIPEDA hearings resumed this week appearances by groups from the banking sector, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and the insurance industry. CIPPIC has details on day nine and ten. The committee is now focused almost exclusively on a single issue – security breach notification legislation. There appears to be […]
Kirwan on Phishing
Mary Kirwan has an interesting column at the Globe focusing on phishing. She suggests that "the problem is simply under-reported in Canada, and that the tight-knit banking community is keeping mum about the issue."
Building a Privacy Culture from the Ground Up
My weekly Law Bytes column (freely available hyperlinked version, Toronto Star version) examines last week’s Privacy Commissioner of Canada finding on secondary marketing. The Commissioner ruled that the inclusion of marketing materials in banking statements constitutes "secondary marketing" and that consumers should be entitled to opt-out of receiving it. I […]