New tools need to manage privacy risks, commissioner says

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New tools need to manage privacy risks, commissioner says

90% of Canadians are very concerned about their inability to protect their privacy.

Staff on September 28, 2016

New technologies and business models are putting ever-greater pressures on privacy and demand a more modern approach to protecting personal information, says the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

“We’re trying to use 20th Century tools to deal with 21st Century privacy problems and it’s clear those tools are increasingly insufficient,” Daniel Therrien says.

Meanwhile, 90% of Canadians are very concerned about their inability to protect their privacy.

“The government should give greater priority to the modernization of laws and policies and it should invest more resources in building robust privacy protection frameworks. This is essential to maintaining public confidence in government and the digital economy,” says Commissioner Therrien.

The need for modernization in the face of rapid technological change is the key theme of the Commissioner’s latest Annual Report, tabled today in Parliament. The 2015-16 report describes the work of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) as it relates to both the Privacy Act, which applies to the federal public sector, and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), the federal private sector privacy law.

Both laws predate many of the technological innovations that are creating new challenges for privacy protection by enabling businesses and governments to collect and analyze exponentially greater quantities of information. In fact, as the report notes, the Internet did not even exist when the Privacy Act was proclaimed in 1983 and Facebook had yet to be imagined when PIPEDA came into force in 2001.

In March, the OPC provided a Parliamentary committee studying the Privacy Act with a submission on modernizing the legislation that included 16 recommendations covering three broad themes: responding to technological change; legislative modernization; and the need for transparency.

In addition to the changes needed on the public sector front, Commissioner Therrien says it is also clear that new private sector challenges must also be addressed.

This includes the notion of consent for the collection use and disclosure of personal information, which has been a cornerstone of PIPEDA. Many are questioning how Canadians can meaningfully exercise their right to consent to the collection, use and disclosure of their personal information in an increasingly complex environment involving new technologies and new business models where personal information plays a central role. The OPC has launched public consultations aimed at identifying possible solutions to address growing challenges related to consent.

A second consultation process is examining privacy issues related to online reputation, with the ultimate goal of helping to create an environment where individuals can use the Internet to explore their interests and develop without fear their digital trace will lead to unfair treatment.

 

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New tools need to manage privacy risks, commissioner says