The Canadian Privacy Law Blog reports on a new Ontario decision which concluded there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in subscriber account records.
Wiertz Sebastien - Privacy by Sebastien Wiertz (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/ahk6nh
Privacy
Industry Canada Proposes Changes to Spam Bill as Lobbyists Demand More
Earlier this week, I wrote about the mounting lobbyist pressure to water down Bill C-27, Canada's anti-spam bill. The pressure in recent hearings has been intense – Amazon was generally supportive of the bill but still sought an implied consent for existing customers for five to seven years (in other words, seven years to simply ask if the customer wants to receive future emails), the Entertainment Software Association and the Canadian Intellectual Property Council teamed up to warn that the bill would put Canada at a competitive disadvantage, and the Canadian Bankers Association called on the Industry Committee to completely gut the bill by dropping opt-in consent and the private right of action provisions.
Yesterday I attended the last committee meeting before clause-by-clause review as government officials appeared to propose reforms and address committee concerns. The meeting showed the lobbying efforts are bearing fruit as officials proposed 40 changes to the bill. While some are technical, there are several significant suggested reforms. Moreover, the lobbying continued, as Liberal and Bloc MPs appeared to work actively to raise lobbyist issues.
First, the proposed reforms, which include:
Globe on Fight To Water Down Anti-Spam Bill
The Globe covers the attempts to water down C-27, the anti-spam bill. It notes that Amazon would like a 5 to 7 year exception to allow it to imply consent from customers for further commercial messages.
Privacy Commissioner Releases Annual PIPEDA Report
The Privacy Commissioner of Canada released her annual report on private sector privacy yesterday. While the media focused on the recommendations on youth privacy, it was interesting to see data showing increasing numbers of reported data breaches. Reported incidents moved from 23 in 2006, to 48 in 2007, to 65 […]
Lobbyist Pressure Focused on Watering Down Anti-Spam Bill
The introduction last spring of Bill C-27 – the Electronic Commerce Protection Act – represented the culmination of years of effort to address concerns that Canada is rapidly emerging as a spam haven. Industry Minister Tony Clement’s anti-spam bill has steadily made its way through the legislative process, with the Standing Committee on Industry likely to conduct its final "clause by clause" review over the next two weeks.
Although support for anti-spam legislation would seemingly be uncontroversial, my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that various business groups have mounted a spirited attack against the bill, claiming requirements to obtain to user consent before sending commercial email will create new barriers to doing business online. The Conservative MPs on the committee have remained supportive of the bill, yet Liberal MPs have expressed growing concern about some of the bill’s provisions.
A close examination reveals that the bill sets reasonable limits for online marketing consistent with laws found in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. In fact, there are four major caveats to the consent requirement.
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