Privacy & Surveillance

CFE Intervener Factum in the Supreme Court of Canada – This appeal concerns the scope of the obligations of meaningful consent and safeguarding according to Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). CFE submits three points in this intervener factum: (1) evidence of subjective expectations of privacy, rather than those of a reasonable person, has no role to play in determining whether meaningful consent was provided under PIPEDA; (2) users’ reasonable expectations of privacy on digital platforms will generally be high; and (3) meaningful consent to the use or disclosure of personal information on digital platforms requires that the platform clearly inform the user of the specific purposes for which the information may be used or disclosed, prior to such use or disclosure.

A new book is in the market: Chasing Shadows: Cyber Espionage, Subversion, and the Global Fight for Democracy by Ronald J. Deibert.

In its rush to do, and to be seen to do, something about the very real problem of foreign interference, the House of Commons hurried through — in hours — a well-intentioned but deeply flawed Bill C-70: Countering Foreign Interference Act. Under enormous pressure, it appears the Senate will do likewise today.

In an open letter today to the members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, the Centre for Free Expression and 13 other civil society organizations expressed their deep concerns with the speed with which Bill C-70, the Countering Foreign Interference Act, is currently being rushed through the legislative process.