CCLA looks forward to a deep dive into the legislation tabled today, a Bill lengthily titled \u201cAn Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts.\u201d<\/p>\n
We\u2019re hoping for significant improvements to the previous attempt, tabled in the last Parliament as Bill C-11. That bill, pitched as a way to strengthen privacy protections against private sector incursions and an internet business model increasingly dependent on unconstrained flows of personal information, largely failed to live up to that goal. Indeed, CCLA shared the opinion of then Privacy Commissioner of Canada Daniel Therrien that the bill in fact weakened both privacy protections and accountability for those organisations hungry for our information. At the time, I wrote that C-11 was \u201cinadequate to address the reality that 21st century business models cast us as not just consumers but as the consumed\u00a0\u00bb and further, that it failed to address those loopholes in the law that left recent scandals involving personal information\u2014the Facebook\/Cambridge Analytica case attempting to undermine democratic elections, the provision of Clearview AI facial recognition tools to police across the country, the non-consensual use of facial analytics by Cadillac Fairview\u2014have been prevented–unpunished and unpunishable.<\/p>\n
So, what are some of the things we watching and hoping for?
\n1.\tRecognition of privacy as a human right, not simply an individual interest to be balanced against competing business interests. This one is unlikely but profoundly important.
\n2.\tBetter enforcement powers for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, that include the ability to issue administrative penalties for consent violations which were left out of the regime proposed in Bill C-11.
\n3.\tNarrowing of the \u201cbusiness activities\u201d justification for collecting and using data that, in C-11, gutted the concept of consent without commensurate safeguards around what a \u201creasonable business activity\u201d might be.
\n4.\tExplicit principled protection for sensitive forms of information including biometrics (think facial recognition) and genetic information, with a prohibition on any form of non-consensual collection.
\n5.\tThe right not just to be told (i.e. transparency) when automated decisions are being made about us by AI and how those decisions are being made, but the right to recourse when the AI gets things wrong, including for discriminatory decisions.
\n6.\t\u201cNo go\u201d zones for behavioural manipulation based on granular profiling and targeting.
\n7.\tExplicit guidance around the de-identification\/anonymization\/pseudonymization of personal information and a framework to bring all of these categories within the scope of the law with appropriate protections.
\n8.\tSpecial privacy protection for children.
\n9.\tExplicit coverage of Canadian political parties, as CCLA and many others have called for, including, most recently, Elections Canada.<\/p>\n
This is the short list. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CCLA looks forward to a deep dive into the legislation tabled today, a Bill lengthily titled \u201cAn Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the Personal Information and Data…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,11,87],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7835","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ccpa-bill-c-11","7":"category-privacy","8":"category-privacy-law-reform"},"yoast_head":"\n