Federal Privacy Commissioner Uses Ashley Madison Incident to Promote Good Information Governance

Organizations subject to Canadian privacy law should be aware that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (together with the Australian Information Commissioner) recently issued a report on the 2015 breach of the Ashley Madison website – a breach that affected nearly 35 million individuals who had used the online dating site for adults…

Privacy Rights vs. Union’s Duty to Represent its Membership: The Bernard Case Concludes

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal in Bernard v. Canada (Attorney General), thus ending the “legal odyssey” of an employee who did not want her personal information disclosed to the unions which she declined to join during her years of employment with the federal government, but to which she was mandatorily obligated to…

Supreme Court of Canada Hears Case Involving the Intersection of Privacy and Labour Relations Rights

The Supreme Court of Canada recently heard an appeal that involves the intersection of privacy rights with a union’s duty of representation to its membership. At issue was the request of the appellant that her employer not disclose her personal information to her union, to which she was obligated to pay dues but declined to…

New Privacy Legislation in Manitoba

Organizations with operations in Manitoba need to be aware that the Manitoba Legislature has recently passed new privacy legislation that will apply to the private sector and, to a lesser degree, to the not-for-profit sector – The Personal Information Protection and Identity Theft Prevention Act (“PIPITPA” or the “Act”). PIPITPA will establish rules for the…

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…

Hicks Morley Information and Privacy Highlights – Fall 2011

Welcome to the Fall 2011 Hicks Morley Information and Privacy Highlights! This second edition of our new re-vamped publication includes many note-worthy decisions, including Vaughan (City) (Re) , where the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario found that personal information received on an unsolicited basis is not “collected” for the purposes of the Municipal Freedom…

Personal information received on an unsolicited basis is not “collected”

The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario issued a notable privacy investigation report this past summer under of the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the “Act“). The complainants complained, amongst other things, that the Municipality in issue had improperly collected their personal information contained in correspondence they sent to the Municipality,…

Hicks Morley Information and Privacy Highlights – Spring 2011

Welcome to the Spring 2011 Hicks Morley Information and Privacy Highlights! As you may have noticed, we’ve recently re-vamped our publication and introduced a shorter, more condensed version of our traditional Post, designed to provide you with the most relevant and leading case law. The Highlights will now be published three times annually and will…

Hicks Morley Information and Privacy Post – Fall 2010

Welcome to the Fall 2010 Quarterly Edition of the Hicks Morley Information and Privacy Post! As always, we bring you this quarter’s case law updates in privacy, freedom of information, confidentiality and the law of production. Highlights in this quarter include State Farm v. Privacy Commissioner of Canada, [2010] FC 736, where the Federal Court…