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Did you know the Canadian government recently launched a public consultation on new international privacy certifications, ostensibly aimed at making it a little easier, safer and more transparent for Canadian organizations to manage cross-border data transfers?
Announced mid-March by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister François-Philippe Champagne, the government is looking for feedback on how Canada could or should roll out the Global Cross-Border Privacy Rules and the Privacy Recognition for Processors System.
These certifications are meant to help businesses prove they meet recognized privacy standards when handling personal information that crosses borders. This is all in response to what we all know is a growing challenge in today's global digital economy — data moves constantly, but privacy protections vary widely from country to country. Heck, it's why privacy lawyers like me are so busy.
Back in 2022, Canada joined the Global CBPR Forum as a founding member. That forum created these certification systems to try to bring some consistency to cross-border privacy protections. A few of the things being explored as part of the consultation process:
- How to implement one or both certifications — the CBPR for organizations that control personal information and the PRP for those that process it for others.
- How to select independent accountability agents, the organizations that would review, certify and monitor compliance.
- How to design the program so it works for small and medium-sized businesses, which make up most of Canada's economy, by whatever metric you use.
It's not a brand new idea — talk has circulated about these kinds of certifications for many years — but it does seem to be picking up steam. It's important to flag that these certifications wouldn't replace Canadian privacy laws. Rather, they'd sit alongside them as another tool for businesses to show they're meeting privacy obligations when dealing internationally.
If Canada actually implements this, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is expected to take on the role of privacy enforcement authority. That means investigating if a certified company breaks the rules and working with international partners on enforcement. But their exact role may depend on how Canada sets up the program, which is part of what this consultation is about.
For Canadian businesses, especially those operating globally, these certifications could be a new way to show privacy compliance and reduce complexity when data flows across borders. But we shall see.
The consultation is open until 30 June 2025, and privacy pros and other stakeholders are invited to weigh in on how the system should work in Canada.
Kris Klein, CIPP/C, CIPM, FIP, is the managing director for Canada for the IAPP.
This article originally appeared in the Canada Dashboard Digest, a free weekly IAPP newsletter. Subscriptions to this and other IAPP newsletters can be found here.