Check out what the Section has been working on and please get in touch if you have any suggestions for the Executive, or if you would like to get involved!
On the Advocacy Front
The Section will have a very busy year on the advocacy front! Here is what the Section has on its plate:
- The Section intends to participate in the upcoming federal consultations on the recently tabled Bill C-11 to modernize the federal privacy framework applicable to private-sector organizations. If adopted, Bill C-11 will replace PIPEDA with the “Consumer Protection Privacy Act” and will create a Data Protection Tribunal established pursuant to a new “Data Protection Tribunal Act”.
- The Section is also currently participating in the Access to Information Act one-year review announced this summer by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.
- The Section is contributing to the Privacy Act consultations and will file a submission by the January 17, 2021 deadline.
- Finally, the Section continues to examine the issue of whether the RCMP are or should be subject to provincial freedom of information and protection of privacy laws when performing contracted police services (Clare’s Law).
Find all our previous submissions.
Online Symposium a Success!
The Section shifted our annual Access to Information and Privacy Law Symposium into a 3-day online program this year from October 30 – November 13. Attendees were able to catch up on significant developments in the past year in the popular Canadian Update and International Update sessions, hear the Hon. Robert Sharpe (Ret. Justice of the Ontario Court of Appeal) speak on the Common Law Privacy Tort – Its Development and Its Future and get some insight on the impacts of COVID on privacy issues and upcoming legislative reform in the Regulator’s Perspective panel.
If you missed the Symposium and wish to watch one or more sessions, the recordings are available for purchase.
The new virtual format provided unexpected benefits, allowing us to significantly increase the number of attendees to over 200. It also allowed attendees to attend all sessions instead of having to choose between competing sessions. The Section will definitely consider this experience for next year! Thanks again to the organizing committee, our sponsors and, first and foremost, our seasoned speakers.
Essay Contest
The Section is pleased to announce the 2020 winner and runner-up of our annual Law Student Essay Contest! We invite you to read their impressive papers:
- Ilya Berlin’s winning paper, entitled "Le Projet de Loi C-59, la cybersécurité et les enjeux liés au recueil des ensembles de données par le Service canadien du renseignement de sécurité (SCRS)";
- Justine Sara’s runner up paper, entitled “Cybersécurité en entreprise et données personnelles : perspective québécoise de la responsabilité civile ».
Recent Member Articles
Our members have been busy writing articles on current privacy issues:
- What are the cybersecurity trends this year? Learn more by reading the article Recent Trends in Cybersecurity by our friends at Blake Cassels & Graydon LLP (Imran Ahmad, Ellie Marshall, John Lenz, Natalie LaMarche, and Haley Puah).
- Or what about recent privacy litigation trends? Check out Chloe Snider’s article Recent Trends in Canadian Privacy Litigation.
- Interested in new convergences and divergences between Canadian and foreign privacy laws? You won’t want to miss Chantal Bernier’s article The Evolving Distinctions Between Canadian and Foreign Privacy Laws.
- Now that Bill C-11 is on the table, does some of its features have the potential to compromise Canada’s adequacy status with the European Union? Danielle Miller Olofsson provides some insight on this issue in her article Canada’s C-11 Gamble.
If you have an article you would like to submit, please contact us.
In Case You Missed It
Sincerely,
Caroline Deschênes
PD and Communications Officer, CBA Privacy and Access Law Section