Canada's privacy watchdog is calling on federal officials in Ottawa to take immediate action to safeguard people’s personal information as online threats grow more dangerous.
Federal Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien said in his annual report, tabled in Parliament on Thursday, that there is an urgent need for stronger laws to protect Canadians personal information. The report cites recent lapses involving companies such as Facebook and Equifax as examples of Ottawa’s slow response to online threats and data breaches.
"It is not enough to ask companies to live up to their responsibilities. Canadians need stronger privacy laws that will protect them when organizations fail to do so," reads the report.
Therrien currently makes non-binding recommendations to organizations in the public and private sectors. However, he is looking for powers of enforcement and the ability to levy fines and the authority to conduct inspections to ensure compliance with privacy laws.
Federal Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains said Thursday that Ottawa has developed new federal regulations that are due to take effect in November and will require companies to report all privacy breaches presenting a real risk of significant harm.
But Therrien said the significance of those new regulations is hampered by the fact that his office does not have the money or resources to analyze breach reports, provide advice on how to avoid risks and verify compliance. He also said that his current funding doesn't allow for timely advice to the public on dozens of emerging issues.
On one key issue, Therrien said he plans to ask the Canadian courts whether federal laws require Google to remove web pages from its mammoth search engine. Such a move is aimed at providing clarity over the legality in Canada of what advocates call "the right to be forgotten."
Therrien's office takes the position that existing Canadian law gives people the right to ask online search engines such as Google to de-index web pages and to ask websites to remove or update content that contains inaccurate, incomplete or outdated information.
Related Stories
