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

Ontario Court Sets Standard For Disclosing Anonymous Posters

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has issued its appellate decision on whether the owners of the Free Dominion website can be ordered to disclose the identities of several anonymous posters accused of defamation. The original order covered email and IP addresses.  On appeal, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and CIPPIC intervened to argue that the court should take free speech and privacy rights into consideration when assessing whether an order is appropriate.

Relying heavily on the Sony BMG v. Doe case (the file sharing lawsuit that CRIA now denies exists), the court notes that it "illustrates that a court must have regard to the privacy interests of anonymous users of the Internet before granting a Norwich Phramacal order, even where the issue involved pertains to property rights and does not engage the interest of freedom of expression." 

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May 4, 2010 5 comments News

Alberta Breach Notification Rules Take Effect

Changes to Alberta's privacy law took effect over the weekend with the provincial private sector privacy law now featuring a mandatory security breach reporting requirement.

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May 3, 2010 Comments are Disabled News

Privacy Takes Step Towards Global Enforcement

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that last week the talk of the privacy world was news that 10 privacy and data protection commissioners – led by Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart – had released a public letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, expressing concern that the Internet giant was forgetting its privacy responsibilities.  

The letter, also signed by the heads of privacy agencies from France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom, focused on the recent introduction of Google Buzz, a service that offered new social media capabilities.  It attracted the wrath of users and privacy advocates after Google automatically assigned users a network of "followers" from among people with whom they corresponded most often on Gmail.  Google quickly altered the offending features, but the damage was clearly done, as privacy commissioners from around the world used the incident as the basis for a shot across the company’s bow.

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April 29, 2010 2 comments Columns

Privacy Takes Big Step Toward Global Enforcement

Appeared in the Toronto Star on April 26, 2010 as Privacy Takes Big Step Towards Global Enforcement Last week the talk of the privacy world was news that 10 privacy and data protection commissioners – led by Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart – had released a public letter to Google […]

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April 29, 2010 Comments are Disabled Columns Archive

Wire Report on PIPEDA Reform

The Wire Report has an excellent article on submissions received by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada on PIPEDA reform.  Based on information obtained via access to information, the report notes that associations and businesses such as the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and Microsoft warn against further PIPEDA reform.

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April 27, 2010 2 comments News