Tag: Canada

(Feb 19, 2019) In this week's Privacy Tracker global legislative roundup, read about Kenya's recently amended national ID law that will require citizens, immigrants and refugees to share their DNA, GPS coordinates and various biometric data before receiving identification documents. The Romanian Presidency of the Council of Europe has released amended text for the proposed ePrivacy Regulation. The Supreme Court of Canada found that students had a reasonable expectation of privacy, even if the school employs se... Read More

(Feb 19, 2019) In this week's Privacy Tracker global legislative roundup, read about Kenya's recently amended national ID law that will require citizens, immigrants and refugees to share their DNA, GPS coordinates and various biometric data before receiving identification documents. The Romanian Presidency of the Council of Europe has released amended text for the proposed ePrivacy Regulation. The Supreme Court of Canada found that students had a reasonable expectation of privacy, even if the school employs se... Read More

(Feb 15, 2019) With the proliferation of video cameras in our society, I often hear arguments from people who say we’ve lost our ability to have privacy while in public. I never liked that argument, and it seems that the judges of the Supreme Court don’t like it either. Thursday, the court released a decision in which they emphasized that people retain certain expectations of privacy even in locales that have extensive video surveillance. The case arose from some pretty disgusting facts: A school teacher was ... Read More

(Feb 15, 2019) In a decision that is expected to impact future privacy-related cases, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a teacher who secretly filmed female students' chests with a camera pen is guilty of voyeurism, CBC News reports. While lower courts had previously ruled that students had no reasonable expectation of privacy while at school, the Supreme Court's unanimous decision found that students had a reasonable expectation of privacy, even if the school employs security cameras. Writing for the maj... Read More

(Feb 15, 2019) The Toronto Police Service announced it has abandoned its plan to adopt a gunshot detection system, The Globe and Mail reports. ShotSpotter incorporates a network of rooftop microphones to determine the exact location of a gunshot. Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General told the police department the “ShotSpotter technology could compromise Section 8 of the Charter rights, specifically unreasonable search and seizure.” Privacy advocates expressed concerns about the surveillance capabilities ... Read More

(Feb 15, 2019) Newfoundland and Labrador Information and Privacy Commissioner Donovan Molloy will step down from his position to become a territorial judge in the Northwest Territories, CBC News reports. N.L. House Speaker Perry Trimper said a committee will be formed to find an acting commissioner and, ultimately, Molloy’s replacement. "Donovan Molloy has done a great job in this role and while I'm sad to see him go, I've come to know him well enough to know how excited he is about the opportunity in the Nort... Read More

(Feb 15, 2019) Hackers have demanded Ontario-based health care provider CarePartners pay $18,000 worth of bitcoin in exchange for stolen patient data, HealthITSecurity reports. CarePartners announced it was hit by a data breach last June when it claimed patient and employee data had been compromised. The hackers contacted DataBreaches.net and provided two large files of data. The first file contained the encrypted medical information of about 80,000 patients, while the second held employee rates and earnings. ... Read More

(Feb 15, 2019) The Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner found seven health care professionals illicitly accessed the electronic health records of Humboldt Broncos team members involved in the fatal bus crash in April, CBC News reports. The commissioner’s report stated employees of eHealth Saskatchewan “understood the risk of snooping.” eHealth reported the record access in July after it found staff members accessed data without having “a legitimate need-to-know.” “This has been a maj... Read More

(Feb 15, 2019) Privacy Commissioner of Canada Daniel Therrien announced his agency will investigate Facebook over allegations it gave the Royal Bank of Canada access to users’ data, Bloomberg reports. The allegations are links to a payment feature developed by Royal Bank to allow users to transfer money through Facebook Messenger. The feature was available from 2013 to 2015. RBC Spokesman AJ Goodman said in an email the bank is not under investigation. “We received two complaints against Facebook in relation t... Read More

(Feb 11, 2019) In this week's Privacy Tracker global legislative roundup, read about the latest support for U.S. federal privacy legislation and efforts to bolster state privacy protections. France's data protection authority, the CNIL, has announced the new members of its college. Germany’s competition authority, the Bundeskartellamt, has placed restrictions on Facebook’s data-processing activities. In the U.K, the Information Commissioner’s Office has launched an investigation into Google for potential viola... Read More