“The ‘boogey man’ of the U.S.A. Patriot Act has just become an easy excuse to say no …Canadian authorities can get information in the U.S. without a warrant and American authorities can get information in Canada without a warrant” and this happens on a daily basis” David Fraser
Canadians are quick to use the U.S.A. Patriot Act as an excuse to avoid cloud computing, but they might not know many of the same laws already exist in Canada. Privacy lawyer David Fraser highlights the similarities in this interview with ComputerWorld Canada.
When Parliament was prorogued last month by Canada’s Conservative party government, the so-called anti-malware bill, and three other tech-related bills died.
Getting them back on the legislative agenda will depend on the prime minister’s priorities
The bills are C-27, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act, which covers spam and malware; C-47, which gives police increased power for criminal investigations; and two pieces of legislation, C-46 and C-58, are for fighting child pornography.
Of particular interest to those gearing up their email campaign marketing plans for the new year, is Bill C-27 which forbids anyone in Canada from sending a commercial message to any electronic address unless the receiver has consented. An exception is if the person sending the message has had a business transaction with the recipient in the previous 18 months. Penalties range from up to $1 million for individual violators to up to $10 million for organizations.
As a business owner, this may be your window to run that email campaign to prospects you had planned. As an over spammed consumer, hopefully Bill C-27 gets resurrected and passed soon !
Read realetd story on Network World Canada.
The Federal Privacy Commissioner’s annual report for 2008 was released to parliament today. It is clear that the focus is on the need to protect personal information online. The commissioner is cautioning the public to take greater responsibility for securing their privacy and thinking twice about what they post on the Internet. The need to be ‘Connected’ vs ‘privacy and security’… the ultimate balacing act.
“Many young people are choosing to open their lives in ways their parents would have thought impossible and their grandparents unthinkable. Their lives play out on a public stage of their own design as they strive for visibility, connectedness and knowledge,” says Jennifer Stoddart, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
Read the full report.
The Honourable Peter Van Loan, Minister of Public Safety was joined in Toronto on Friday October 2nd, by Tom Pownall, Officer In Charge of the RCMP Technological Crime Branch and Diane Brisebois, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Retail Council of Canada to kick off Cyber Security Awareness Month.
“As technology advances, criminal activity is moving online into the cyber world,” said Minister Van Loan. “This poses a real safety and security threat to individual Canadians, who can become victims. Cyber Security Awareness Month is an opportunity to inform individuals, families, and businesses of the risks we all face and how to stay safe online.”
Read the full press release, some key facts, as well as additional information on cyber security.
Bell Canada Enterprises says it has recovered the stolen data relating to 3.4 million Ontario and Quebec customers with help from the Montreal police. The stolen customer information was found on hard drives, flash drives and CDs. A 30-year-old Montreal man was arrested on Tuesday in connection with the incident.
“It was on a hard drive and on a memory stick and on a CD,” Langton explains. “It was all electronic, there was no other format.”
Read the full article on ITBusiness.ca
Facebook just released as statement with respect to the findings of the office of the Privacy Commisioner. Glad to see that the message of a coordinated effort being the key to true security in the Web 2.0 space is being re-iterated.
The Commissioner also recognised, as we (Facebook)do, that privacy and user control on the social web is a new area, which requires websites, users and data protection authorities to work together.
Here is the article in the Ottawa Citizen about the original findings of the Privacy Commissioners with respect to ‘serious privacy gaps in Facebook’ and her ‘ultimatum’.
“The proposed legislation strikes an appropriate balance between the investigative powers used to protect public safety and the necessity to safeguard privacy and the rights and freedoms of Canadians.”
Another excerpt from the press release…
…”technologies have also provided new ways of committing crimes such as distributing child pornography. We must ensure investigators have the necessary powers to trace and ultimately stop crimes.”
Here are some thoughts from the Canadian Privacy Law Blog and the Gartner Blog on this legislation.
Your thoughts ?? Does it change things for you ? How does this affect your security policies ? Does it ?
It’s taken some time, but I’ve finally taken the first step and got my blog up and running.
It’s my hope that this site flourishes into a site where people can glean from and contribute to a dialog on IT Security from a Canadian perspective.
I will be posting news articles, resources and of course my own thoughts on everything ranging from technology, business processes, legislation and all things in between.
Please feel free to ask questions and comment.
And thanks for visiting.
