Information & Ethics committee  In Alberta, I think we have essentially the same situation as was described in B.C. and Quebec. The legislation protects everybody's personal information, regardless of age. We do have the idea of a mature minor who is able to thoughtfully exercise his or her rights under the leg

Information & Ethics committee  I wouldn't have any objection to that, but I think you would want to look at it within the entire toolbox of enforcement powers. For example, I did not go to the committee that was reviewing PIPA, to talk about the need for enforceable agreements, because I have order-making powe

Information & Ethics committee  It depends on which topics you might be looking for performance metrics. We did a general population survey back in 2015 to get a sense of how individuals feel about privacy. We asked if they think it's important, if they feel their information is protected, if they are aware of

Information & Ethics committee  I think somebody should be responsible for privacy, and that's already in our legislation. They do need to have policies, but they don't need to be written, according to Alberta's PIPA. I can't speak for PIPEDA or B.C.'s PIPA. I think any legislation of a requirement to have a pr

Information & Ethics committee  I'm happy to answer that. If I can clarify, when I was talking about areas for improvement, that might have been specifically in some comments I was making about consent. Is your question specifically about limitations of the consent model?

Information & Ethics committee  Or is it just about general limitations in the legislation?

Information & Ethics committee  I'll start with my own legislation. I did make a submission recently on Alberta's second legislated review of its PIPA. That concluded at the end of last year. My submission to the review committee included 10 recommendations for strengthening the legislation. I said I thought th

Information & Ethics committee  I think there is. That's my concern. One of the things we did talk about, and a recommendation I made to amend our provincial legislation, was to require that organizations have a privacy management program in place. This does speak to some of what we're expecting to see when th

Information & Ethics committee  I would like to add to that, to back up what Michael has said. Remember that Alberta's legislation and B.C.'s legislation, for example, were drafted at almost the exact same time using almost exactly the same language, so they're very similar. Both have been deemed, along with

Information & Ethics committee  Absolutely. Enforcement powers [Technical difficulty—Editor] infrequently. As I mentioned, close to 90% of the cases that come into our office are resolved informally. We make recommendations, the organization agrees to implement those recommendations, and the matter is resolved.

Information & Ethics committee  Well, it continues to increase; every year we receive more reports under PIPA. We have managed so far. I will say I have some concerns. There is some expectation that we'll be seeing mandatory breach reporting in the health sector in Alberta sometime in the fairly near future. Th

Information & Ethics committee  I think it's very important to be aware of what is happening in Europe. As I mentioned in my comments, one of the things I said to the committee in Alberta that was reviewing our Personal Information Protection Act was that—at least with respect to mandatory breach reporting and

Information & Ethics committee  I certainly think some of the reasons there is interest in this issue have to do with the explosion or proliferation of technology and social media. You can't pick up the papers without hearing about sexting, cyber-bullying, or information that has been posted that you can never

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for the invitation to speak to you today as you review the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. Here in Alberta, we call it “PIPEEDA” as opposed to “PIPEDA”, as Drew just referred to it. Wi

Information & Ethics committee  We do have a similar exception to access in Alberta's legislation, but I think I will use my opportunity to respond to just say this. The sharing of information across public sector, private sector, health sector is something that has been of particular interest to me in the last