Consultations on emerging technologies

Earlier this year, the privacy commissioner of Canada, Jennifer Stoddart, announced that her office would host consultations on a number of topics that could create serious privacy challenges for consumers.

In January, the commissioner announced that her office was initiating a consultation process on the privacy issues related to the online tracking, profiling, and targeting of consumers by marketers and other businesses. The advent of new technologies such as cookies, deep packet inspection, and global positioning systems (GPS) allows significant amounts of data to be collected for the purpose of creating personal profiles of individuals. These profiles then allow marketers to target products and services to individuals who meet certain demographic or geographical characteristics. While some have expressed concern that this collection and use of personal information may be occurring without the knowledge or consent of individuals, others have argued that this benefits consumers as it reduces the amount of unwanted and irrelevant advertising they receive and that the practices support the free Internet.

Early in February, the commissioner announced consultations on the privacy issues related to cloud computing. The commissioner noted that businesses and individual Canadians are increasingly making use of the cloud but they are often unaware that it may be impacting their privacy. The use of social networking sites, Web mail, online file storage, and other such applications result in personal information being stored not on the user’s computer, but on computers in remote locations, generally not under the control of the individual. Some critics of cloud computing warn that individuals risk losing control over their personal information in the cloud, for example, where it is stored, who has access to it, how long it is retained, that information may be used for other purposes than for which it was intended, and to whom it may be disclosed. As the information may be stored in other jurisdictions, it may become subject to different laws.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) invited written submissions on the matter of online tracking and will host formal discussion panels in Toronto and Montreal in May. The OPC is accepting written submissions on the matter of cloud computing until April 15 and intends to hold a formal discussion panel in Calgary in June 2010.