My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) examines recent Statistics Canada data on Internet use. The survey found that nearly 17 million Canadians – 68 percent of the adult population – used the Internet for personal non-business reasons last year. Moreover, almost two-thirds of Canadian adults who […]
Wiertz Sebastien - Privacy by Sebastien Wiertz (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/ahk6nh
Privacy
Statscan Survey Shows Internet’s Potential and Pitfalls
Appeared in the Toronto Star on August 21, 2006 as Public Sector Should Step in if Private Can't Provide Canadian Internet policy has long been based on the principle of private sector leadership. The 2005 Canadian Internet Use Survey, released last week by Statistics Canada, suggests that the approach […]
Privacy Commissioner Launches SWIFT Investigation
The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has announced that she has launched an investigation into the privacy issues related to SWIFT. It is good to see that the Commissioner is willing to proceed on this issue, but frustrating that they have not taken the same approach with other privacy issues involving […]
Why the AOL Search Fiasco Matters
Matthew Ingram and others have questioned the response to AOL’s release of search data. The skeptics argue that the privacy concerns have been overblown, noting that no one has actually been personally identified through their searches. No longer. The NY Times runs a story in which it was relatively easy […]
CIPPIC Files Formal Complaint Over SWIFT
While the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has previously announced that she is investigating the issue, CIPPIC has joined forces with Privacy International to file a formal complaint against the big six banks regarding allegedly unlawful disclosures of personal banking information to the U.S. government by SWIFT.
Recent Posts
The Sound of Silence: On Being Jewish in Canada in 2025 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 241: Scott Benzie on How Government Policy Has Eroded Big Tech Support for Canadian Culture 
What Is the Canadian Government Doing With Its Incoherent Approach to TikTok? 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 240: Dean Beeby on Why Canada’s Language Laws May Stop Government From Posting Access to Information Records Online 
Risky Business: The Legal and Privacy Concerns of Mandatory Age Verification Technologies
