November 20, 2023 - Canada’s governments have been grappling with threats to Canadians’ privacy posed by the fast expanding collection and use of their personal data, enabled in turn by increasingly powerful digital technologies. In that effort, Ottawa should seek to make the protection of privacy easier, according to a new research paper by the C.D. Howe Institute.
In “Getting Personal: The Promise and Potential Missteps of Canada’s New Privacy Legislation,” author Daniel Schwanen notes that an update to Canada’s federal privacy legislation is much needed. At the same time, legislators and regulators can help streamline implementation of the proposed Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA), which is embedded in Bill C-27, the Digital Charter Implementation Act, currently before Parliament.
“Privacy protections have been strengthened in recent decades in many countries, including Canada,” said Schwanen. But he notes that other jurisdictions have upped their game recently, and it is time Canada be brought up to speed. He also notes that privacy protection is also important to maintain trust, which is essential to a well-functioning economy that is increasingly based on the use of data.
“It’s important that we continue to build and maintain a culture that emphasizes the importance of privacy while working to protect our personal data, particularly at the level of the firm,” said Schwanen. “As result, we must develop a common understanding between regulators, businesses, and individuals, of what privacy protections can be expected and enforced in a commercial setting.”
The CPPA is already taking some major steps in that direction, for example by requiring companies to adopt plain language privacy policies, and instituting expanded administrative monetary penalties for those infringing the rules.
Schwanen also notes that it behooves legislators to help contain costs and reduce uncertainty stemming from the legislation, while also helping Canadians better understand and claim their privacy rights. Measures to that effect should include public education campaigns, serious efforts to harmonize federal and provincial privacy laws, and a longer implementation period, coupled with streamlined tools and procedures, for smaller businesses.
Schwanen sees the bill as it’s currently drafted as achieving a good balance between the costs and benefits for Canadians of protecting their rights to privacy. "Critics calling for a more paternalistic approach to privacy protection by further restricting uses companies can make of personal data risk jeopardizing the benefits Canadians can expect from sharing their data,” he notes.
Ultimately, he says, “Enforcing privacy rights is necessary to maintain public trust which is foundational to the ability of the economy and society at large to benefit from the digital age.”
For more information, please contact Daniel Schwanen, Vice President, Research, C.D. Howe Institute, and Gillian Campbell, Communications Officer, C.D. Howe Institute at gcampbell@cdhowe.org.
The C.D. Howe Institute is an independent not-for-profit research institute whose mission is to raise living standards by fostering economically sound public policies. Widely considered to be Canada's most influential think tank, the Institute is a trusted source of essential policy intelligence, distinguished by research that is nonpartisan, evidence-based and subject to definitive expert review.