Data privacy \u2013 the science and art of protecting and accurately disclosing to customers how personally identifiable information is being used by organizations \u2013 is as important today to enterprises as network security.
With the 11 th annual International Data Privacy Day being officially celebrated Jan. 28 th \u2013 which falls on a Saturday \u2013 privacy experts this week are looking back at privacy incidents in 2016 and ahead to 2017.
While the situation isn\u2019t bad here they warn the public and private sectors not to be complacent.
\u201cI think we\u2019re in very good position\u201d on privacy in Canada, says Ann Cavoukian , director of Ryerson University\u2019s Big Data and Privacy Institute.
Many Canadian businesses are aware of the heightened public concern about privacy and fears of loss of control of personal information held by enterprises and governments, she said. In fact Cavoukian regularly advises businesses to loudly shout to customers they take data privacy seriously.
Customers will consent to secondary use of data if they have a trusted business relationship with the organization.
However, she\u2019s worried about the privacy implications of data collected by so-called smart devices, ranging from watches to cars. Some manufacturers \u201care clueless,\u201d she said, \u201cbecause of all the information it can collect.\u201d But they don\u2019t know where all of it goes and if law enforcement can get access to it. \u201cThey don\u2019t have the controls in place.\u201d
David Fraser, a privacy lawyer with the Halifax firm McInnes Cooper, isn\u2019t sure small and medium-sized Canadian firms \u201care up to speed in the way that they should be\u201d on privacy.
Most of the headline cases privacy commissioners deal with involve large enterprises \u2013 banks, insurance companies, telcos and the like who have resources (lawyers, compliance officers) to adequately handle privacy issues. Most SMBs don\u2019t, he said.
In Canada 2016 was relatively quiet, said Fraser.
A growing number of class action lawsuits relating to privacy and data breaches have been filed across the country, he said. A few have been quietly settled. The rest are either certified or in the process of being certified but haven\u2019t yet come to trial, he noted. Several deal with issues like a lost hard drive where there\u2019s a question of how much damage a plaintiff has suffered.
But there\u2019s also been a \u201csignificant growth\u201d in the number of class-action and criminal cases involving employees allegedly improperly snooping through sensitive corporate files.
A headline 2015 Ontario court privacy decision on allowing a person to sue another for allegedly putting an explicit video of them on the Internet \u2013so-called \u2018revenge porn\u2019 \u2013 was overturned and is now back in court, leaving that issue temporarily unresolved.
One thing to look for this year, Fraser said, is how the Trudeau government will move after public consultations on national security policy, which may translate into privacy-related legislation.
In many ways, Cavoukian and Fraser said, 2017 is going to be more eventful than last year for several reasons:
\u2013Ottawa is expected to release proposed regulations for reporting data breaches to the federal privacy commissioner and to potential victims for organizations coming under PIPEDA;
\u2013organizations that sell products and services into Europe will have to prepare to comply with the European Union\u2019s General Data Protection Regulation (GDRP), which comes into effect May 25, 2018;
The federal information and privacy commissioner will release the results of two public consultations:
\u2013on whether organizations are properly getting consent for personal information they collect from customers and partners;
\u2013and on whether Internet service providers should do more to protect people who say their reputation has been damaged by others online.
Looking back it\u2019s not easy to assess the state of privacy in Canada in the past 12 months. Examining reported data breaches is an uneven metric because there is no consistent reporting authority.
What can be said is the biggest reported Canadian breach in 2016 was the 4 5 million records exposed at Toronto-based VerticalScope , which operates hundreds of technology, automotive and sports discussion forums. The company is controlled by the parent of the Toronto Star.
Also, the federal privacy commissioner reported that the number of material data breaches suffered by federal departments increased 16 per cent to 298 for the 12 month period ending March, 2016, compared to 256 the previous year.
Meanwhile CBC news reported that as many as 70,000 managers had excess and unneeded access to the personal details of all 300,000 federal employees enrolled in the new and problem-filled Phoenix pay system.<\/p>\n

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