The year 2020 is likely to bring with it significant legal developments in privacy law in Canada. Perhaps the most important of these at the federal level will come in the form of legislative change. In new Mandate letters, the Prime Minister has charged both the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Innovation Science and Industry with obligations to overhaul public and private sector data protection laws. It is widely anticipated that a new bill to reform the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) will be forthcoming this year, and amendments to the Privacy Act are also expected at some point.
The mandate letters are interesting in what they both do and do not reveal about changes to come in these areas. In the first place, both mandate letters contain identical wording around privacy issues. Their respective letters require the two Ministers to work with each other:
. . . to advance Canada’s Digital Charter and enhanced powers for the Privacy Commissioner, in order to establish a new set of online rights, including: data portability; the ability to withdraw, remove and erase basic personal data from a platform; the knowledge of how personal data is being used, including with a national advertising registry and the ability to withdraw consent for the sharing or sale of data; the ability to review and challenge the amount of personal data that a company or government has collected; proactive data security requirements; the ability to be informed when personal data is breached with appropriate compensation; and the ability to be free from online discrimination including bias and harassment. [my emphasis]
A first thing to note is that the letters reference GDPR-style rights in the form of data portability and the right of erasure. If implemented, these should give individuals considerably more control over their personal information and will strengthen individual interests in their own data. It will be interesting to see what form these rights take. A sophisticated version of data portability has been contemplated in the context of open banking, and a recent announcement makes it clear that work on open banking is ongoing (even though open banking is notably absent from the mandate letter of the Minister of Finance). GDPR-style portability is a start, though it is much less potent as a means of empowering individuals.
The right of erasure is oddly framed. The letters describe it as “the ability to withdraw, remove and erase basic personal data from a platform” (my emphasis). It is unclear why the right of erasure would be limited to basic information on platforms. Individuals should have the right to withdraw, remove and erase personal data from all organizations that have collected it, so long as that erasure is not inconsistent with the purposes for which it was provided and for which it is still required.
Enhancements to rights of notice and new rights to challenge the extent of data collection and retention will be interesting reforms. The references to “appropriate compensation” suggest that the government is attuned to well-publicized concerns that the consequences of PIPEDA breaches are an insufficient incentive to improve privacy practices. Yet it is unclear what form such compensation will take and what procedures will be in place for individuals to pursue it. It is not evident, for example, whether compensation will only be available for data security breaches, or whether it will extend to breaches of other PIPEDA obligations. It is unclear whether the right to adequate compensation will also apply to breaches of the Privacy Act. The letters are mum as to whether it will involve statutory damages linked to a private right of action, or some other form of compensation fund. It is interesting to note that although the government has talked about new powers for the Commissioner including the ability to levy significant fines, these do not appear in the mandate letters.
Perhaps the most surprising feature of the Minister of Industry’s mandate letter is the direction to work with the Minister of Canadian Heritage to “create new regulations for large digital companies to better protect people’s personal data and encourage greater competition in the digital marketplace.” This suggests that new privacy obligations that are sector-specific and separate from PIPEDA are contemplated for “large digital companies”, whatever that might mean. These rules are to be overseen by a brand new Data Commissioner. Undoubtedly, this will raise interesting issues regarding duplication of resources, as well as divided jurisdiction and potentially different approaches to privacy depending on whether an organization is large or small, digital or otherwise.