On January 5, 2013, Electronic Commerce Protection Regulations (“ECP Regulations”), proposed under Canada’s Anti-spam Legislation (“CASL”*), were published. As previously reported, the CASL enacts comprehensive anti-spam legislation relating to the sending of commercial electronic messages (“CEMs”). The CASL has not yet been proclaimed into force, with the exception of certain Personal Information Protection and Electronic…
Practice Area: Information, Data Security & Privacy
Reaching Out – Second Edition
Dear Friends, Happy Holidays! Since our first edition of Reaching Out this past summer, the fall has managed to fly by and we find ourselves already gearing up for the holiday season. We hope you found our first edition of our social services update informative and we always appreciate your feedback. In our Winter edition,…
Regulatory Proposal Issued Regarding School Bus Driver Requirements
On November 22, 2012, the Ontario government (Ministry of Education) issued a regulatory proposal regarding the requirement that school bus drivers have a clear criminal record check report in order to qualify for and hold the requisite driver’s licence. That requirement is currently found in a regulation under the Highway Traffic Act. Under this proposal,…
Check your email recipient list before you press “send”
Employers must take care not to press the “send” button too soon as inadvertently copying an incorrect person on an email communication can have unintended results. In Fernandes v. Marketforce Communications, an employer emailed information to its lawyer setting out concerns regarding the continued employment of an employee. By mistake, that employee was copied on…
2012 Fall Edition
FOCUS ON 40TH ANNIVERSARY A “client first” culture – 40 years of Hicks Morley excellence LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS Recent case imposes Criminal Code fines for workplace health and safety violations Healthy email use for corporations: Ten tips PROFILE Covering all the bases Download PDF
Supreme Court of Canada Grants Leave in Cyber-Picketing Case
The Supreme Court of Canada has granted leave to appeal in United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 401 v Alberta (Attorney General), a decision from the Alberta Court of Appeal which raised extremely broad questions about the constitutionality of Alberta’s commercial sector privacy statute in disposing of a dispute about the right of a union…
Supreme Court of Canada Discusses the Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in Workplace Computer
The Supreme Court of Canada has issued a significant decision regarding workplace privacy. In R. v. Cole, it unanimously held that employees have a diminished, but reasonable, expectation of privacy in personal information stored on an employer-issued computer. Employers may continue to access information stored on their work systems for their legitimate purposes, though they…
Hicks Morley Introduces Case Law Blog
Hicks Morley is pleased to announce the launch of Case In Point, a blog designed to provide human resources professionals with timely information about interesting case law developments in a range of employment-related areas. In this FTR Now, we highlight the features of this new service. BACKGROUND In 2010, Hicks Morley launched Human Resources Legislative…
Supreme Court of Canada Renders Decision on Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in Workplace Computer
The Supreme Court of Canada rendered R. v. Cole in which it unanimously held that employees have a diminished but reasonable expectation of privacy in the use of their workplace computers. This case involved a warrantless police search of the accused’s workplace computer, which contained materials alleged to be child pornography. That evidence was excluded…
The Reasonable Expectation of Privacy: Where Does it End?
Privacy is an expanding area of law, and it has particular impact on employers. In a recent decision outside of the employment context – R v. Ward – the Court of Appeal for Ontario speaks to the scope of an individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy. The decision in Ward highlights two points of importance to…