BC FIPA, in partnership with the Vancouver Design Nerds, held a two-day design jam in Ottawa March 5th and 6th. The purpose of this event was to explore issues around meaningful consent in the context of everyday life ranging from personal wearable technologies to smart homes and smart cities and their relationship to big data. […]

MEDIA RELEASEMarch 30, 2020 Ministry of Citizens’ Services relaxes restrictions on the use of third-party tools and applications to disclose personal information inside or outside of Canada VANCOUVER, March 30, 2020 – In the time of a global emergency, the protection of privacy and access to information rights needs to be kept at the forefront of […]

View full submission here. The context in which we understand privacy is shifting in the current landscape of big data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. What was generally considered a broad topic with varying normative understandings is now at the forefront of debates and policy work as the varied stakeholders attempt to narrow its […]

This is the third in our series on the privacy promises we can expect from a Liberal minority government. Information about the Right to Erasure is from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada’s ‘Digital Charter: Trust in a digital world’, and the Liberal Party of Canada’s election 2019 platform document, ‘Forward: A real plan for the middle […]

This is the second in our series on the privacy promises we can expect from a Liberal minority government. From Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada’s ‘Digital Charter: Trust in a digital world’, and the Liberal Party of Canada’s election 2019 platform document, ‘Forward: A real plan for the middle class’ (40). In Canada’s Digital Charter, data […]

Vancouver, December 18, 2019 –  Yesterday, LifeLabs announced a data breach that affects 15 million Canadians. The breach, which primarily impacts clients in BC and Ontario, includes highly sensitive personal information, like medical diagnostic test results and genetic information. The information was breached on October 28, 2019. LifeLabs has paid an unreported sum to cybercriminals […]

This is the first in our series on the privacy promises we can expect from a Liberal minority government. (From Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada’s ‘Strengthening Privacy for the Digital Age: Proposals to modernize the Personal Information and Protection of Electronic Documents Act’.)  1. Meaningful Consent One of the commitments to increase the powers […]

Privacy violations highlight the need for law reform Earlier this week, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of B.C. (OIPC BC) and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) released a joint investigation report that found a B.C. company violated B.C.’s provincial and Canada’s federal privacy laws. While conducting business on high-profile campaigns […]

Previously, we compared access to information and privacy commitments in the platforms of four of Canada’s major federal political parties. Now, we’ll take a look at what we can expect from a Liberal minority government. With the election results in, we now have greater clarity about how Canada will proceed with access to information and […]

By Stanley Tromp Stanley Tromp is a Vancouver independent journalist and author of the book Fallen Behind: Canada’s Access to Information Act in the World Context. Canada’s Access to Information Act of 1982 is an essential law that allows citizens and the media to obtain government records on many vital topics, such as health and […]

How Canada’s major federal political parties compare on issues related to privacy and access to information The table below uses publicly available information contained within the platforms of Canada’s four major political parties: the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, the New Democratic Party, and the Green Party. FIPA is a non-partisan organization and this chart […]

The BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA) is inviting all students, parents, teachers, and concerned members of the public, to join us in exploring the privacy implications of Learning Management Systems (LMS) in B.C.’s public K-12 education system. Many school boards across the province have adopted the use of LMS, including Google’s G […]