Message from the Privacy Commissioner

Welcome to the first edition of "Privacy Perspectives", my Office’s new e-newsletter. Every issue will contain information about the work our Office is doing to protect and promote privacy rights. more

OPC in Action

Privacy Knows No Borders

International data protection authorities (DPAs) from around the globe gathered in Strasburg, France from October 15 to 17 for the 30^th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners to discuss pressing privacy issues and how they can work together to address them. more

New Leadership for OPC Investigations and Inquiries

On August 11, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner welcomed a new Director General of Investigations and Inquiries, Art Dunfee. more

News of Note

Calling All Telemarketers

On September 30, 2008, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission launched the much-anticipated National Do Not Call List. Residents of Canada can now reduce the number of telemarketing calls they receive by registering their residential, wireless, fax, or VoIP telephone number(s) on the list. Canadians have responded to this new service with great enthusiasm—in fact, so many people tried to access it the first day, the system was actually overwhelmed. Our Office is very pleased to see how much Canadians obviously care about protecting their privacy and we applaud the introduction of the National Do Not Call List.

Surveillance Guidance

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has prepared a draft guidance document that sets out good practice rules for private sector organizations that are either contemplating or using covert video surveillance. We are now soliciting feedback on this guidance, and will use this information to develop our final recommendations for good practices in this area. See the Consultation on Covert Video Surveillance Draft Guidance Web page for more information.

Research Funding Coming Soon

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada will soon launch its 2009-2010 Contributions Program, which provides funding for research into privacy issues to encourage the advancement of privacy rights. Last year’s program was met with great enthusiasm; we received a record 67 applications for funding and awarded a total of $406,923 to privacy-related research and public education projects. We are currently finalizing the details for the 2009-2010 program and we plan to post information about how to apply on the research projects Web page some time in November.

The OPC is responsible for overseeing compliance with PIPEDA and the Privacy Act. These two laws protect our privacy rights and describe the obligations of organizations that seek to collect, use or disclose our personal information:

For real-life examples ofhow the legislation comes into play, visit our case summaries:

• PIPEDA Case summary #394: Outsourcing of canada.com e-mail services to U.S.-based firm raises questions for subscribers
• PIPEDA Case summary #393: Laptop theft at bank and long delay before informing victims were both avoidable
• PIPEDA Case summary #392: Individual objects to being photographed by private investigation firm
• PIPEDA Case summary #391: Company must not charge flat fee to process access request

• Privacy Guide for Small Businesses
• Self-assessment tool for businesses
• Online breach incident report form
• Online complaint forms for PIPEDA and Privacy Act