Client privacy issues at the forefront.

• Author: Wareing, Andrew
• Position: Business Law

Protecting customer privacy does not need to be a burden. In fact, it can be a major selling point.

On Jan. 1,2004 the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act's (PIPEDA) regulations governing private sector use of personal information will come into effect and will require businesses to be careful of how they use personal information collected from clients and customers.

"From a business perspective, businesses are not aware of the breadth and depth of this legislation," says Ian Turnbull, director of the Canadian Privacy Institute. "From a consumer perspective, consumers are not aware of the rights they have. What we're seeing is people aren't getting practical suggestions. Nobody has any sense of how much work it will take to be fully compliant."

"Businesses (have to) get ready for this law and they aren't," says Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian. "Very few are even aware that they are going to be affected by this law because there has been little education by the federal government. My office has been consulting extensively with business about this legislation."

The federal privacy commissioner's office is responsible for public education about the Act, but Cavoukian says this past summer's issues revolving around former privacy commissioner George Radwanski have taken up the agency's attention.

She says she has been averaging about two discussions a week to business groups around Ontario about the legislation.

There are a total of 10 principals with the Act, the first of which is for companies to designate someone as a privacy officer who will be responsible for protecting customer information.

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Other crucial principals of the Act demand that businesses inform people of the uses they will have for the information and to not use the information for any other purpose.

"This is big because companies aren't used to this," says...