Canada

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…

The Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) yesterday approved of Bell Canada’s new AI-based anti-spam system on a 90-day trial basis. The system will be tested for 90 days to measure its efficacy in blocking fraudulent calls from illegitimate and malformed numbers. Bell’s application specifies that its new system uses AI…

Canada’s anti-spam law has been the target of intense criticism since its introduction in 2009 as the Electronic Commerce Protection Act. Even after the law passed in 2010, there was no shortage of effort to delay the regulations needed to put it into effect. Once it finally took effect in…

June 17, 10:00AM to 12:30PM EDT In jurisdictions around the world, automated contact tracing is being considered as an element of COVID-19 recovery efforts. However, in many regions these efforts are being met with resistance, with significant questions being raised around surveillance, privacy, and even the efficacy of such systems.…

The federal privacy commissioner has little faith current laws are strong enough to protect the rights of Canadians if governments approve a COVID-19 contact tracing app. Asked Friday by a parliamentary committee if he is confident current privacy laws would protect Canadians if there was a privacy breach in a…

Appearance before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (INDU) on contact tracing applications May 29, 2020 Ottawa, Ontario Opening statement by Daniel Therrien Privacy Commissioner of Canada (Check against delivery) Thank you chair and committee members for your invitation to discuss tracing applications, which is…

With governments around the world making billions of dollars available for COVID-19 financial relief, criminals are making every effort to take advantage. That includes building phony official coronavirus relief templates for websites to trick victims into giving up sensitive personal information. Among the sites discovered by security vendor Proofpoint are…

Facebook has been ordered to pay a $9-million penalty after making “false or misleading claims about the privacy of Canadians’ personal information,” according to a news release from the Competition Bureau. The decision follows an investigation into the social media company’s privacy practices between 2012 and 2018. The Competition Bureau…

Cookie banners are increasingly prevalent on internet sites. A section about cookies may appear in privacy policies and, sometimes, even an entire policy is devoted exclusively to them. But what is a “cookie”? Also known as “HTTP cookies”, “browser cookies” or “web cookies”, a cookie is a small piece of…

Enforcement Highlights CRTC issues $115,000 in penalties to stop the spread of malicious software Recently, CRTC staff took enforcement action against Orcus Technologies and its partners John Paul Revezs and Vincent Leo Griebel, who developed, marketed and sold the Orcus RAT. Following this investigation, the Chief Compliance & Enforcement Officer…