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.

Sunday, September 05, 2004

OPC on Privacy Impact Assessments 

In March, Stuart Bloomfield of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada gave a good speech about privacy impact assessments to the "Managing Government information" forum in Ottawa. I didn't link to it when I first came across it, but I thought I'd highlight it today because it's a good read for those who are interested in PIAs or are evangelists about the risk-management benefits of conducting privacy impact assessments before significant projects. Here is an extract from the speech:

Speech: Managing Government Information 2nd Annual Forum - March 10, 2004 - Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada - Privacy Commissioner of Canada:

"In sum, PIAs perform the following roles:

  1. They act as an early warning and planning tool;
  2. They forecast and/or confirm the impacts of a government proposal on the privacy of individuals and groups;
  3. They provide a mechanism to assess a proposal's compliance with privacy protection legislation and principles; and
  4. They provide a framework for the development and implementation of actions and strategies required to avoid or overcome the negative impacts of the proposal on privacy.

In conducting a PIA and acting upon the advice advanced therein, government departments can:

  1. Avoid adverse publicity, the loss of credibility and public confidence and the legal costs, remedies and sanctions that could result from negative impacts; and
  2. Increase Canadians' privacy awareness and confidence with the government's handling of their personal information by informing them of the details of the proposal.

The potential costs to departments by not conducting a PIA where one is required should not be underestimated. One need only recall the highly publicized debacle over HRDC's Longitudinal Labour Force File (LLF) whose subsequent dismantlement following public complaints against the database cost the department millions of dollars. Arguably had a PIA been done on the LLF prior to implementation, HRDC could have avoided the adverse publicity and financial losses that it suffered as a result of this incident."

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