Last week, I promised a more in-depth look at Bill C-27 and the IAPP published an excellent article written by Florence So. If you missed it, here’s a link and I know there are other resources starting to pop up as privacy pros dig into the legislation. This is the law that will, among other things, replace the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, so it’s a pretty big deal in Canada.

We haven’t heard from the new federal privacy commissioner on what he thinks of the proposed law but I’m sure that will come at some point. After all, he was only nominated commissioner a couple weeks ago, and starts this Monday, June 27. I do think the theories of merging the privacy and information offices have been laid to rest, though, at least for the moment!

Anyway, when it comes to the bill, there are the hints that the government will try to move quickly. While I understand that and don’t want the process to take forever, I hope they do build in time for meaningful debate in committee, particularly given some of the new aspects of the bill like the artificial intelligence component.

While we wait for the OPC to provide its views and advice to Parliament on the government’s proposed bill, they are nonetheless continuing to do some interesting work as part of their public education mandate. Did you know that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has a contributions program where they award approximately $500,000 annually to nonprofit organizations and individuals doing interesting privacy-related research? If you’re a privacy pro working for a nonprofit, remember this and make sure to apply next time they post their annual applications callout.

They just announced the recipients of this year’s (2022-23) allotment this past week. The broader theme is about assessing and mitigating privacy risks, barriers and inequalities, and among the 11 organizations receiving funding is a group from Nunavut. They’ll be looking at privacy, artificial intelligence and machine learning through a “rural, remote and Indigenous lens.” It sounds really interesting and I’m looking forward to seeing the results of this and the other projects. You can access the list of all the projects here.

All in all, there’s a lot happening in Canada's privacy-land lately. Take the time to catch up and enjoy the first official summer weekend.