Submission to the OPC’s Consultation on Consent under PIPEDA (Brothers)

Michael and Karin Brothers

October 2016

Note: This submission was contributed by the author to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s Consultation on Consent under PIPEDA.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this document are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

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We have read and understand the consultation procedures. We are writing as individuals disturbed about privacy violations despite our attempts to ensure maximum privacy when we provide any personal information.

We support the EU’s standards on privacy, and believe that personal privacy should outweigh any business interests.

1. Our comments are directed to the government because we believe that the Government must be responsible for strictly enforcing privacy standards in a meaningful way: there should be steep financial penalties (if not the possibility of criminal penalties) depending on the severity of the breach and the impact of a breach on an individual.
2. Members of the public must give explicit permission for their personal information to be shared or made use of in ways other than that which they assumed when they provided it.
3. Businesses should notify individuals when they share their personal data without consent; we are disturbed when we see that our information has been shared. We should be able to find out who provided it and they should face penalties if there has been a breach.
4. Privacy options should be made clear to people when they provide personal information; the privacy options along with penalties should be clear.
5. Penalties should be easy to impose and the injured parties should collect part of the penalty; we have tried to lodge complaints against companies that constantly call us – to no avail.
6. And most of all, as a Canadian, all of our personal data should be shielded from foreign countries: our financial data should not be shared with the US Government, our census (and StatsCan) data should not be handled by foreign companies (particularly with military ones such as Lockheed Martin!), and our Canadian credit card billing should not be handled outside Canada. Canadian sovereignty should be more than symbolic.
7. Personal data and meta data should remain in Canada and subject to privacy rules.