FYI:
Here's a nicely written summary of Monday's talk.
reagrds
robert
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Andrew Clement" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 12:24:24 -0500
From: "Colin J. Williams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [CPI-UA]: Fw: Privacy Lecture
Series--Privacy Autonomy, and the
Limits of Technology-Monday, March 26 6-7:30 pm
Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Mike,
Thanks for drawing our attention to this lecture. George Radwanski, the
Privacy Commissioner of Canada gave an interesting talk, which was followed by
a question period of more than an hour, in which he responded in a clear and
direct way.
In his view, based on the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, privacy
is a fundamental right. Article 12 says:
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy,
family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and
reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law
against such interference or attacks.
The right now applies to material held by much of the public service across the
country, under the Privacy Act and various provincial statutes. It was
extended to nationally regulated private bodies under the Personal Information
Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and will be extended to entities under
provincial jurisdiction over the next three years.
Radwanski pointed out that gadgetry or technical wizardry are not sufficient to
ensure privacy. Clear rules together with the powers of enforcement are
required. He feels that the two statutes provide the rules and that the
Commissioner's Office is charged with, among other things, the enforcement of
these rules. He was at pains to point out that he is an officer of parliament
and not an employee of, or in any way responsible to, the Government of Canada.
The powers of enforcement under the Personal Information Protection and
Electronic Documents Act have not yet been tested in the courts, but they rely
primarily on persuasion. He pointed out that for a Privacy Commissioner to
report that a particular bank has a poor regard for privacy would do immense
damage to that bank. He also has the power to issue orders and, if necessary,
seek the support of the federal court to enforce those orders.
Mention was made of the Mail Opening Case, where some changes in the process
are being considered.
He said that he had visited Brussels to explain the Canadian legislation to the
European Union administration. The EU Directive on Data Protection restricts
the transfer of European personal data to jurisdictions without protection
similar to that set out in the directive. The EU has not yet determined
whether the Canadian legislation qualifies.
The enforcement process is largely complaint driven and perhaps 15 complaints
have been received to date. One of these raises the interesting issue of
whether a physician's prescribing habits, as recorded by a pharmacy, are
personal data of the physician. The Commissioner has not ruled on the issue.
When asked whether the right of privacy is also attached to corporate bodies,
he said "No, the Act applies only to natural persons".
After the presentation, I had a brief chat with the manager of the
communications branch of the Privacy Commissioner's Office, to enquire why the
office's URL (http://www.privcom.gc.ca) contains the letters 'gc', when it is
not in fact part of the Government of Canada. She said that they are trying to
correct this and went on to say that they were obliged to place some recent
advertisements dealing with the new law as being "A Message from the Government
of Canada". They are also trying to correct this.
It is interesting to note that although privacy is a human right, under Section
25 of the Canada Business Corporations Act, a corporation has "the rights,
powers and privileges of a natural person.". I understand that this formed
the basis of the Supreme Court's tobacco decision, in which the human right of
freedom of expression was extended to tobacco companies.
The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario does provide online access
to its orders, although the list appears incomplete and the indexing is
difficult to use. This type of information does seem to be readily available
for Canada.
Thanks again.
Colin W.
Michael Gurstein wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "KMDI Info" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 7:02 AM
> Subject: Privacy Lecture Series--Privacy, Autonomy, and the Limits of
> Technology-Monday, March 26 6-7:30 pm
>
> PRIVACY LECTURE SERIES
> <http://privacy.openflows.org>
>
> "PRIVACY, AUTONOMY, AND THE LIMITS OF TECHNOLOGY"
--
--
Robert Guerra <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Fax: +1(303) 484-0302
WWW Page <http://pgp.greatvideo.com>, ICQ # 10266626
PGPKeys <http://pgp.greatvideo.com/keys/rguerra/>
