Privacy Commissioner of Canada Jennifer Stoddart has sent an open letter to Canadian Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews to outline her deep concerns about “lawful access” legislation that is expected soon from the Harper government. “Lawful access” refers to the legal authority of police and security officials to monitor, intercept, seize, and search our […]

PROPOSED CHANGES WOULD RADICALLY ALTER FREEDOM OF INFORMATION LAW Your privacy is at risk as never before in B.C., and the immediate threat isn’t coming from Facebook or Canada’s spy agency – it’s a bill before the B.C. legislature. Without consulting you, our premier and a gaggle of techno-bureaucrats have decided to sacrifice B.C.’s privacy […]

Joint FIPA-Newspapers Canada Letter To Secretary Clinton Corrects the Record Newspapers Canada and the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association have joined forces to correct the federal government’s claims about their performance on transparency and Access to Information made in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The joint letter to […]

FIPA and the BC Civil Liberties Association are raising the alarm over amendments to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act introduced yesterday. “The government has decided on a policy to massively increase the personal information collected, stored and shared with others,” said Micheal Vonn, Policy Director of the BCCLA. “Yet, projects like […]

Right to Know Week in Canada takes place on Sept 26-Sep 30, 2011 RTK Week was created to raise people’s awareness about their right of access to government information. It highlights the essential role freedom of information plays in democracy and good governance. This year marks the sixth year that Canadians have celebrated RTK Week, and there […]

In this issue: BC’s ‘Open Information, Open Data’ plan shows promise …but the other side of ‘Government 2.0’ requires radical changes to our “antiquated” privacy protections Coalition formed to battle online spying bills FIPA turns 20! Birthday party September 28 Commissioner Denham says BC Ferries-style FOI policy “frustrates the purposes of FIPPA” BC Ferries ‘loses’ […]

JOINT LETTER QUESTIONS WHY GOVERNMENT IS AVOIDING DEBATE ON INTERNET SURVEILLANCE LEGISLATION A new “Stop Online Spying” coalition of Canadian public interest organizations and academics released a joint letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper today, voicing grave concerns about pending omnibus legislation that would allow for warrantless online spying on Canadians (“Lawful Access” legislation). The […]

GOVERNMENT MOVES TO ROUTINELY RELEASE SOME INFORMATION, BUT LOTS OF RECORDS REMAIN BEHIND CLOSED DOORS With its new “Open Information – Open Data” policy, the BC government has taken a big step forward on how it releases information to the public. But according to the BC Freedom of information and Privacy Association, there is still […]

The BCCLA and BC FIPA have sent a joint letter to the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC regarding media reports that the office of the commissioner will be investigating ICBC’S proposed use of its photo database for the purposes of identifying suspects in the recent Stanley Cup riots. In our view, it is arguable […]

FIPA has created a website called “Health Information Privacy in British Columbia” to fill a serious lack of information available to the public about their health privacy rights as the province moves toward a universal system of government- controlled electronic health records. British Columbia has launched a multi-million dollar program to create an electronic health […]

More than 30.000 people and organizations have signed an online petition against the federal government’s plan to sneak in internet spy legislation as part of its omnibus crime bill. FIPA is a member of the STOP ONLINE SPYING campaign and encourages all its members and supporters to sign the petition which is available at http://www.stopspying.ca/ […]

SOME PROPOSALS HINDER PRIVACY RIGHTS By Ian Mulgrew Vancouver Sun June 7, 2011 The Conservative government’s omnibus “tough-on-crime” legislation should be redubbed “tough-on-civil-liberties” if it embraces all the last Parliament’s law-and-order leftovers. … Aside from concerns over the radical change to the country’s approach to crime-and-punishment, some of the proposals run roughshod over privacy rights […]