Cyber-rights.

• Author: Dickson, Gary

Fifty-one percent of Canadians agree that they have less personal privacy in their daily lives than they did ten years ago. Ninety-four percent of Canadians increasingly feel it is important to have safeguards to protect personal information on the Internet. The right to privacy commands more and more attention as information sharing technology appears to outstrip the current ability of either governments or industry to police abuses.

Canadian provinces have all but ignored this threat. Alberta has enacted a law that will protect our privacy when it comes to personal information collected, stored, or used by a government department or by a local municipality, university, or a school. The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, however, does not apply to the private sector. In 1998, Manitoba passed a law that provides some protection for personal health information. Proposed health information laws in Ontario and Alberta would also deal with privacy considerations for health information held by private industry such as insurance companies and large employers. The laws governing personal information collected and used by private registries is also now under review in Alberta. Other than these few initiatives, there is precious little attention paid to privacy protection.

That indifference to privacy in the non-governmental arena has quickly changed with the introduction of Bill C-54 in Parliament. Bill C-54 provides a national focus for these important questions about privacy and information technology. Canada's national privacy commissioner, Mr. Bruce Phillips, has described Bill C-54 as "the most significant advance in protecting Canadians' personal information since the Privacy Act regulated federal government handling of personal information in 1983". The Bill responds to international pressures like the European Union Privacy Directive that took effect on October 25, 1998. That Directive effectively bans certain kinds of trade with nations that do not provide legislated privacy protection.

Bill C54 deals with electronic commerce and attempts to ensure that courts and governments have appropriate rules to deal with e-mails and other electronic documents.

The more controversial part of Bill C-54 is related to the new rules for the protection of personal information. It initially will apply only to banking, communication, and telecommunication industries that are regulated by the government of Canada. After the law has been in...