Privacy - News

Yesterday, Madame Justice Aitken of the the Ontario Divisional Court approved CIPPIC's motion seeking leave to intervene in Warman v. Fournier, an appeal which will address important issues surrounding the role of online anonymity in the discovery process.  CIPPIC will argue that, by ordering the disclosure of identifying documents, the ruling being appealed failed to provide adequate safeguards for user privacy.  The appeal will be heard Wednesday, April 8, 2010.

Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner has ordered Crown attorneys to cease collecting any personal information of potential jurors, beyond that which is necessary under the Juries Act and Criminal Code. The Commissioner has called on the Ministry of the Attorney General to implement a standardized juror screening process that will put an end to the practice of the police investigating potential jurors through techniques that included accessing confidential databases.

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The OPC has released a letter to CIPPIC outlining its final resolution with social networking site Facebook with respect to the privacy concerns CIPPIC raised in its PIPEDA complaint a year ago.  The letter supplements the original finding and lays out a process for moving forward.  The OPC has said it will continue to work with Facebook over the coming year to ensure that Facebook implements its obligations in a manner that meets the requirements of the Act.  CIPPIC has some outstanding concerns, and will continue to engage both the OPC and Facebook to ensure these are met.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has published a collection of essays by leading academics, lawyers, researchers, activists and industry professionals on the topic of deep packet inspection. The website is intended to serve as a resource to help Canadians understand the potential impact of this technology on our networked society.