Hand over the information--it's mine, it's personal.

• Author: Hunter, Laird
• Position: Not-For-Profit law - Alberta's Personal Information Protection Act

On January 1, 2004, non-profit organizations in Alberta became subject to Alberta's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA). PIPA is Alberta's response to PIPEDA--the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. This federal legislation specifies how private sector organizations may collect, use, or disclose personal information in the course of commercial activities. This federal act was approved in the spring of 2000 and came into effect in stages. It currently covers federally regulated private sector organizations. Public sector organizations have been under similar coverage for years.

On January 1, 2004, PIPEDA extended to every organization that collects, uses or discloses personal information in the course of a commercial activity within a province. But if a province adopts legislation that is substantially similar to PIPEDA--in Alberta's case PIPA--the organizations, classes of organizations or activities covered by the provincial legislation are exempt from the application of PIPEDA.

PIPA creates rules about collecting, using, and disclosing (showing, telling or giving some other organization) personal information to balance:

* an individual's right to have his or her personal information protected, and

** an organization's need to collect, use or disclose personal information for purposes that are reasonable, that is, for legitimate business purposes.

The Act also gives individuals the right to ask an organization to show them the personal information it has about them and to ask for the information to be corrected if they think a mistake has been made.

Why Is There A Need For These Laws Now?

These laws are part of similar legislative activity around the world, but particularly resulting from two pressures: market concerns and pressure from the European Union. For the past two decades, it has become evident that cheap, powerful, and easily available computers made data collection, duplication, processing, and transfer possible in a way that subjected consumers to privacy invasion, identity theft, and fraud, with a particular concern about electronic commerce.

In Europe, early legislation enshrined a principle that required key sectors--particularly the financial--to only deal with countries that had standards at least as vigorous as those of the European Union. In turn, Canada examined its relations with its own citizens, and the standards and trade patterns with Europe in coming to develop PIPEDA.

What...