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 […]
Wiertz Sebastien - Privacy by Sebastien Wiertz (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/ahk6nh
Privacy
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 […]
Canadian Consultation Launched on Identity Theft
The Consumers Measures Committee, a committee comprised of federal, provincial, and territorial consumer protection representatives, has launched a public consultation on identity theft. The background paper identifies several potential legislative solutions including a requirement for organizations to notify consumers affected by a security breach; the placement of a fraud alert […]
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