Articles 2023

The ONCA’s affirmation of the Superior Court decision in Wakeling illustrates some of the basic components and considerations of the tort of intrusion upon seclusion.

An introductory welcome to the 2021-2022 Season from the Privacy and Access to Information Law Section Chair, Jaime Cardy.

On May 19th, 2021 Canada’s Federal, Provincial and Territorial Privacy Commissioners released a joint statement on the privacy implications of Covid-19 vaccine passports. Vaccine passports may offer substantial public benefits; however, in exchange for access to these benefits, individuals will be required to disclose personal health information. As a result, the Commissioners emphasize the importance of addressing privacy considerations from the outset.

Courts in Ontario and Alberta have recently issued several significant decisions in privacy class actions. These two decisions followed the prevailing trend of the dismissal of privacy class actions in Canada, in which courts have generally found that there is no evidence of harm, or that the information at issue did not rise to a level that would support the finding of a reasonable expectation of privacy, or both.

On January 6, 2021, WhatsApp announced that it would update its Privacy Policy to help it better integrate with other Facebook products, making sharing information with Facebook mandatory for WhatsApp users. This prompted many responses online calling for users to leave WhatsApp and to use more “privacy friendly” messaging apps, such as Telegram and Signal. This article discusses the impact of WhatsApp's new Privacy Policy on Canadian users.

In November 2020, the federal government introduced Bill C-11 (The Digital Charter Implementation Act). The proposed bill would overhaul Canada’s existing federal private sector privacy law PIPEDA with a modernized replacement known as the Consumer Privacy Protection Act.