Wiertz Sebastien - Privacy by Sebastien Wiertz (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/ahk6nh

Wiertz Sebastien - Privacy by Sebastien Wiertz (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/ahk6nh

Privacy

Copyright is Back as Bill To Be Tabled on Thursday

Copyright reform is back as the government has placed the copyright reform bill on the notice paper. It is scheduled to be introduced on Thursday, alongside the privacy reform bill that also died with the March election call.

Read more ›

September 27, 2011 9 comments News

Digital Issues Largely Missing From Ontario Election Campaign

The Ontario election campaign kicked off last week with the Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, and NDP promoting their policy platforms and quickly jumping into debates on the economy, health care and education. While the dominance of those three issues is unsurprising, my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes those Ontarians hoping for some discussion of digital policy were bound to be a bit disappointed.

The Liberal platform references the importance of jobs in the technology and media sectors, but offers little else on the digital economy. The Progressive Conservatives are the only party to make a commitment to open government – their platform follows developments in many other jurisdictions that pledge to make government data more readily available for public use – but other digital issues are ignored. The NDP makes no reference to digital policies at all.

The federal government tends to lead on digital policies, though its much-anticipated digital economy strategy is months overdue. Yet for constitutional reasons that grant the provinces jurisdiction over property and civil rights, many important issues fall to the provinces.

Read more ›

September 13, 2011 11 comments Columns

Digital Issues Largely Missing From Ontario Election Campaign

Appeared in the Toronto Star on September 11, 2011 as Digital Issues Largely Missing From Ontario Election Campaign The Ontario election campaign kicked off last week with the Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, and NDP promoting their policy platforms and quickly jumping into debates on the economy, health care and education. While […]

Read more ›

September 13, 2011 Comments are Disabled Columns Archive

Hurt Locker File Sharing Suits Come North: Federal Court Orders ISPs to Disclose Subscriber Info

File sharing lawsuits involving the movie the Hurt Locker have been big news in the United States for months as tens of thousands of lawsuits have been filed. It now appears that the lawsuits are coming to Canada as the Federal Court of Canada has paved the way for the identification of subscribers at Bell Canada, Cogeco, and Videotron who are alleged to have copied the movie.  Late last month the court ordered the three ISPs to disclose the names and addresses of subscribers linked to IP addresses alleged to have copied the movie. The ISPs were given two weeks to respond and are entitled to be reimbursed for their expenses. In reaching its decision, the court cited the BMG Canada v. Doe case, the last major Canadian case involving peer-to-peer file sharing lawsuits. That case opened the door to further lawsuits, though it established some privacy safeguards. In this instance, the court cited PIPEDA as evidence that the personal information can be disclosed as well as federal court rules for the legitimacy of the claim and the necessity of acquiring the information for the lawsuit to proceed. There is no indication that the ISPs challenged the order or that there was an opportunity for a public interest intervention as was the case in the earlier CRIA lawsuits.

Read more ›

September 9, 2011 72 comments News

Alberta Court Declares Portions of Provincial Privacy Law Unconstitutional

David Fraser reports that the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench has ruled that portions of the Personal Information Protection Act (Alberta) are unconstitutional. The Court found that the law violates freedom of expression under Section 2(b) of the Charter and these provisions cannot be justified by Section 1 of the […]

Read more ›

September 7, 2011 Comments are Disabled News