Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Parliamentary Committee releases report on Canadian privacy laws and social media

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics has just released its report on Canadian privacy laws and social media: House of Commons Committees - ETHI (41-1) - Privacy and Social Media - Report.

The Report contains a number of recommendations, including the following:

Recommendation 1 - The Committee recommends that the Privacy Commissioner of Canada establish guidelines directed at social media and data management companies to help them develop practices that fully comply with PIPEDA, particularly accountability and openness.

Recommendation 2 - The Committee recommends that the Privacy Commissioner of Canada establish guidelines directed at social media and data management companies to help them develop policies, agreements and contracts that are drafted in clear, accessible language that facilitates meaningful and ongoing consent.

Recommendation 3 - The Committee recommends that the Privacy Commissioner of Canada establish guidelines directed at social media and data management companies to help them put in place mechanisms that ensure individuals have access to any personal information that those companies may hold about them, that limit how long those companies hold on to that information and that facilitate the deletion of such information.

Recommendation 4 - The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada and social media companies continue to provide support to organizations that provide education and training on digital activities and privacy.

Recommendation 5 - The Committee urges social media companies to play a larger role in promoting safe and active online activities that protect the privacy and personal information of individuals, particularly in regard to vulnerable
groups such as children and young persons.

Recommendation 6 - The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada and social media companies continue to provide support to organizations dedicated to educating and promoting awareness to children, their parents and teachers to protect their personal information and privacy online.

Recommendation 7 - The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada continue to provide support to digital literacy programs.



The NDP members of the Committee also added the following recommendations:

Recommendation 1: New Democrats recommend that the government grant enforcement powers to the Privacy Commissioner such as order making powers and the authority to impose administrative monetary penalties.

Recommendation 2: New Democrats recommend that the government require all organizations to report data breaches or losses to the Privacy Commissioner where a reasonable person would find that the breach or loss presents any risk of harm to the individuals affected.

Recommendation 3: New Democrats recommend that the government modernize Canadian privacy laws to measure up to privacy protections in comparable democracies and to ensure that the personal information of Canadians is well protected in the digital age.

Recommendation 4: New Democrats recommend that the government review Schedule 1 of PIPEDA to clarify that express consent should generally be sought for disclosure of personal information to third parties and that this is especially necessary where such disclosure is a requirement of an end-user license agreement.

Recommendation 5: New Democrats recommend that privacy issues constitute an essential part of a comprehensive digital economy strategy for Canada.

Recommendation 6: New Democrats recommend that the government consider reviewing PIPEDA and corresponding regulations to encourage organizations to implement the practice of privacy by design.

Recommendation 7: New Democrats recommend that PIPEDA, corresponding regulations, and any relevant statutes be amended to encourage organizations to implement Do Not Track functions.

Recommendation 8: New Democrats recommend that the government continue to study ways in which to best protect the personal information of children online while encouraging that they too benefit from the social, cultural, and democratic benefits of the online world.

Recommendation 9: New Democrats recommend that the government conduct a study on the privacy policy known as the “right to be forgotten” and report back to Parliament.


Edit: The first version of this posting inadvertently only showed the NDP recommendations. Sorry. Fixed that.

3 comments:

DJM said...

Your recommedations all start with "New Democrats recommend". Those recommendations aren't in the report you linked to. For example, you say the first recommendation is

Recommendation 1: New Democrats recommend that the government grant enforcement powers to the Privacy Commissioner such as order making powers and the authority to impose administrative monetary penalties.

whereas in the report, recommendation 1 looks like this:

Recommendation 1

The Committee recommends that the Privacy Commissioner of Canada establish guidelines directed at social media and data management companies to help them develop practices that fully comply with PIPEDA, particularly accountability and openness.

Were you working from an NDP alternative report?

privacylawyer said...

Thanks for pointing that out. I copied only the opposition portions. I'll correct that ASAP.

Anonymous said...

So tell me then, if we have all these Provincial and Federal regulatory bodies that are suppose to be set up for all these Privacy issues why when all these agencies are contacted...it is not what they do!!
There is a box of highly sentitive information that was left in a garage by a union rep. Files on their client of all their WSIB case sensitive issues...and the only answer I got was "do you have a shredder!!"".....seriously what is the point of them being there..by the sounds of it...legally all we need to protect ourselves is buy a shredder!