Canada

Canada’s highest court has issued a ruling today upholding a federal law preventing third parties, such as employers and insurance companies, from demanding genetic information from individuals. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada has decided the Genetic Non-Discrimination Act is a constitutional exercise of federal powers. In a curious twist, the federal government…

Data Security in Our Telcos  

It didn’t take long for criminals to take advantage of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement that Canada has approved a COVID-19 tracing app to go into action. According to security vendor ESET, it discovered two fake websites designed to look like official Government of Canada sites were quickly created after…

In December 2017, the INDU Committee released the CASL Review.  According to the Report: “The statutory review of CASL took place between September 26 and December 12, 2017. Throughout that period, the Committee held 13 meetings, heard from 41 witnesses and received 29 briefs from a wide array of stakeholders…

Thank you to Cristina Onosé, Sarah Nasrullah and Haley Fine for your assistance in developing this article and support.  Executive Summary The renegotiated North-American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA 2.0, will have a significant impact on companies. The fundamental concept in the United States, Mexico and Canada Agreement is the…

On June 12, 2020, the day before the Québec National Assembly adjourned until September 2020, the Government of Québec introduced Bill 64, An Act to modernize legislative provisions as regards the protection of personal information. The proposal would bring significant changes to Québec private sector and public sector privacy law.…

TORONTO — LifeLabs failed to protect the personal health information of millions of Canadians, a joint investigation suggests. The joint investigation by the information and privacy commissioners of Ontario and B.C. says the failure resulted in a significant privacy breach in December 2019, which affected 15 million Canadians – primarily in…

Quebec’s proposed modernization of its private sector privacy legislation (Quebec Privacy Act) certainly contains a number of additional operationally burdensome demands on enterprises. However, the proposed amendments in Bill 64 contain several pragmatic, or even business-friendly, provisions. These provisions are not as headline grabbing as big administrative monetary penalties or…

On June 12, 2020, Quebec tabled its proposed update to its public and private sector privacy laws, and it lives up to the promise of the “GDPR-style legislation” first announced this spring. There are a number of elements that echo other federal and provincial privacy laws in Canada, but there…

I never would have consciously volunteered my home address, work location and vacation plans to Tim Hortons, but the company found out anyway. I haven’t been singled out for special treatment. For more than a year, the coffee chain has been tracking the movements of customers in exacting detail through…