Trudeau plans stricter privacy legislation
Changes will include the ability to withdraw, remove and erase personal data from Facebook or Twitter
OTTAWA — The Trudeau government is poised to introduce legislation aimed at better safeguarding the privacy of Canadians in the digital era.
The bill, to be tabled as early as this week, would be a step toward realizing commitments set out in the mandate letter of Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains.
It would also flesh out the 10 principles — from control over data to meaningful penalties for misuse of information — that make up the federal digital charter.
The plan for a legislative overhaul follows repeated calls from federal privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien to modernize Canada’s aging privacy laws.
The Liberals have signalled their intention on the parliamentary notice paper to introduce a bill that would create the Consumer Privacy Protection Act and the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act.
It is not immediately clear how the new legislation would mesh with existing federal privacy laws.
The Privacy Act covers government agencies and federally regulated industries such as banks and airlines. The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act applies to private-sector organizations.
Therrien says Canada’s information-protection laws lag behind many others around the globe.
He has pressed for new authority to issue binding orders
to companies and to levy fines for non-compliance with privacy legislation. Therrien also wants powers to inspect the information-handling practices of organizations.
John Power, a spokesperson for Bains, said last month that Canadians are understandably anxious about how their data is
being used in an increasingly digital world, adding the government was moving to strengthen the private-sector privacy law.
The changes will include the ability to withdraw, remove and erase basic personal data from a platform, such as Facebook or Twitter.