[Reminder: Please remember to put "CONFIDENTIAL" in the Subject: line to alert me to withhold your email address for spam-proofing or other purposes (http://www.politechbot.com/p-03663.html). Otherwise I may not see a request, and while I can remove your address from the archives, Politech mirror sites may not follow suit. --Declan] --- From: [deleted] To: declanat_private Subject: Meet Canada's first privacy plaintiff, IT Business Article Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2002 10:51:54 -0400 Hi Declan, If you distribute this, please show my gwilly.ca email address below, and not the address from which I'm sending. Is the case below just another complaint about a $2 phone bill charge, or a fundamental question about who controls your personal information? I take issue with those who dismiss the case as trivial. Why is publication of personal phone numbers the default option? And what justifies a monthly fee for non-publication? You don't need to think very hard to come up with compelling cases for free non-listing: harassment, stalking, abuse, and just plain wanting to be left the hell alone. Adam Scott ascottat_private www.gwilly.ca/357 ------------------------------------------- http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61&lid=1&sid=49507# IT Business Meet Canada's first privacy plaintiff by Paul Fruitman Matthew Englander couldn't wait two minutes to test the limits of Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. At 12:01 a.m., on Jan. 1, 2001 -- the day the act's first stage was implemented -- Privacy Commissioner of Canada general counsel Heather Black says Englander was among the first to file a complaint under the new legislation. A Vancouver lawyer, Englander took issue with Telus Corp., claiming the telecommunications company discloses the names, addresses and phone numbers of its customers in its White Pages and directories without their consent. Englander also objected to the fee Telus charges to customers who want to keep that information unlisted. But Canada's Privacy Commissioner, George Radwanski, didn't see much merit in Englander's case. He found that Telus' actions passed the Act's Reasonable Person Test, which states the "collection, use and disclosure of personal information must be limited to purposes that a reasonable person would consider appropriate in the circumstances." Undeterred, Englander has exercised his right under section 14 of PIPEDA and applied for a federal court hearing on the matter. The case, which will be heard this fall, could set a precedent with respect to how much privacy Canadians can legitimately expect. It also comes at a time, experts say, when the very idea of privacy is being squeezed on one side by information-hungry marketers and data miners and on the other by the post-Sept. 11 government zeal for security. Black says it is one of only three such cases to go to court so far. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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