Consumer privacy under PIPEDA

This report is not a wide-ranging review of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or PIPEDA in general.2 Neither does it review the effect of the “Electronic Documents” parts of PIPEDA, and the effect (or lack thereof) of the legal recognition of electronic documents. [...] However, although the complainant is interviewed, there is no process for the complainant to respond to the formal response of the company to the Privacy Commissioner, or to the respondent. [...] In a complaint brought by PIAC against Bell Mobility in 2002 (see discussion below) Bell Mobility was permitted to allege the OPCC got the facts wrong, and to provide a different version of the facts to the OPCC, in advance of the final finding and without notice PIAC of the new facts.14. [...] Although the purposes for the credit check information were not explicitly specified by the bank on the authorization, the OPCC took real issue with the legitimacy of the bank’s refusal. [...] Here the finding takes an individual’s view of the process and concludes that most reasonable people will feel a sense of privacy violation in surreptitious recording of their voice and conversation, irrespective of the use to which the conversation is to be put by the other party (here, as evidence of the customer’s application for a loan).