Announcement

January 23, 2023

OPC launches 2023 Data Privacy Week campaign

Canada joins many countries around the world in marking Data Privacy Week to commemorate the 1981 signing of the first legally binding international treaty on privacy and data protection.

Philippe Dufresne, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, issued the following statement on the occasion of Data Privacy Week:

My job is to protect and promote the privacy rights of individuals and to ensure that organizations respect their privacy obligations. I do so not only by investigating and making decisions on privacy complaints, but also by championing privacy as a fundamental right, and encouraging businesses and government institutions to foster a culture of privacy by considering privacy implications at the outset of any initiative, and making it easy for Canadians to choose privacy protection as the default setting.

Privacy is a fundamental right that we should not have to surrender in the name of innovation or profit.

When individuals trust that their rights will be protected, they feel confident about participating freely in the digital economy without having to choose between this participation and their fundamental privacy rights. This is good for consumers, good for businesses, and good for innovation.

This week is Data Privacy Week. I encourage everyone to take a moment to think about privacy and explore our website and resources to learn how you can better protect yourself, your customers, and your community.

This year, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) has also produced a series of videos featuring OPC employees providing privacy tips to individuals, organizations and federal institutions to help them better protect privacy and safeguard personal information.

The videos will be shared on social media.

The OPC has also developed a videoconference background available for download on the campaign page. We encourage everybody to use it to help us mark Data Privacy Week January 22-28 and increase awareness about privacy protection.