The Canadian Privacy Law Blog: Developments in privacy law and writings of a Canadian privacy lawyer, containing information related to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (aka PIPEDA) and other Canadian and international laws.

Search this blog

Recent Posts

On Twitter

About this page and the author

The author of this blog, David T.S. Fraser, is a Canadian privacy lawyer who practices with the firm of McInnes Cooper. He is the author of the Physicians' Privacy Manual. He has a national and international practice advising corporations and individuals on matters related to Canadian privacy laws.

For full contact information and a brief bio, please see David's profile.

Please note that I am only able to provide legal advice to clients. I am not able to provide free legal advice. Any unsolicited information sent to David Fraser cannot be considered to be solicitor-client privileged.

David Fraser's Facebook profile

Privacy Calendar

Archives

Links

Subscribe with Bloglines

RSS Atom Feed

RSS FEED for this site

Subscribe to this Blog as a Yahoo! Group/Mailing List
Powered by groups.yahoo.com

Subscribe with Bloglines
Add to Technorati Favorites!

Blogs I Follow

Small Print

The views expressed herein are solely the author's and should not be attributed to his employer or clients. Any postings on legal issues are provided as a public service, and do not constitute solicitation or provision of legal advice. The author makes no claims, promises or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the information contained herein or linked to. Nothing herein should be used as a substitute for the advice of competent counsel.

This web site is presented for informational purposes only. These materials do not constitute legal advice and do not create a solicitor-client relationship between you and David T.S. Fraser. If you are seeking specific advice related to Canadian privacy law or PIPEDA, contact the author, David T.S. Fraser.

Saturday, March 13, 2004

Article: Businesses Need Trained Privacy Cops 

The International Association of Privacy Professionals has apparently announced that they will begin a certification program for privacy professionals. (See their press release here.) This seems like a very good idea, though it will ultimately be very American focused.

InformationWeek > Privacy > Businesses Need Trained Privacy Cops > March 10, 2004:

"Among the companies represented on the certification program's advisory board are HP, Microsoft, Nationwide Insurance, Nordstrom, Procter & Gamble, and Wal-Mart. Specifics of the certification program are yet to be divulged, but Hughes says the curriculum will be distributed in books, by training partners, and during privacy association conference sessions, with plans for eventual Web-based training. Testing will occur initially at the association's conferences."

I have heard of a Winnipeg lawyer who has started a company called Chartered Privacy Officers, Inc. and is looking to do some sort of privacy officer accreditation. He has filed trademark applications in Canada for the terms "Registered Privacy Officer", "Chartered Privacy Officer", "Licensed Privacy Officer", and "Certified Privacy Officer". I don't think he's associated with any group of privacy professionals, or at least that isn't apparent from his website.

For some time, we have recognized that there is a real lack of training available for privacy officers. Usually, the first question after telling clients that they must appoint a privacy officer is "where can we get training for that?" The answer used to be "nowhere." Conferences and the like are all over the place, but I didn't think the curriculum was comprehensive and didn't actually provide real tools. Being resourceful maritimers, we built our own two-day training program. We first offered in Halifax in October, 2003 and it was incredibly well received. One of the attendees of our first session (employed in the health-care field) mentioned that she had just come from a two day conference on health privacy in Toronto and she found our program head and shoulders above the Toronto program. Ours was "actually useful". We just held another session in Halifax last week and the feedback was equally positive. One attendee said it was the "best continuing professional development program" she'd attended. We are doing it again starting on Monday in Saint John.

Labels: ,

Links to this post:

Create a Link

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours? Creative Commons License
The Canadian Privacy Law Blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License. lawyer blogs