Appeared in the Toronto Star on August 15, 2005 as Why Broadband, Neutrality, Privacy Deserve Policy Boost This year’s federal budget generated more than its fair share of attention. Between Belinda Stronach’s switch to the Liberal Party and the drama surrounding the late Chuck Cadman’s vote, a single paragraph in […]

Wiertz Sebastien - Privacy by Sebastien Wiertz (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/ahk6nh
Privacy
LaForest Appointed To Review Info and Privacy Offices
Former Supreme Court justice Gerard Vincent LaForest was appointed today to study the prospect of combining the Information Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner into a single office. Although that approach is used in many provinces, given the frustration experienced by the Information Commissioner in obtaining compliance (and an extension in […]
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 […]
Privacy Commissioner on Secondary Marketing
The Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner yesterday issued a noteworthy decision involving the ability of consumers to opt-out of secondary marketing that is included in monthly banking statements. Banks routinely pack the monthly statements with an assortment of marketing materials. When a customer asked to have the marketing materials […]
Alta. Privacy Commish Rules Canadian Law Firms Infringed Privacy Law
Alberta Privacy Commissioner has just released a noteworthy decision on the application of private sector privacy laws to mergers and acquisitions transactions. The case involved the acquisition of an Alberta company. As part of the deal, employee information, including home addresses and Social Insurance Numbers, were disclosed. Moreover, since the […]