Consent to record telephone calls
Does one need consent to record a phone call? Like many legal issues – it depends.
Take a look at a post by David Fraser on his Canadian Privacy Law blog that delves into this issue.
David Canton is a business lawyer and trade-mark agent with a practice focusing on technology issues and technology companies.
Does one need consent to record a phone call? Like many legal issues – it depends.
Take a look at a post by David Fraser on his Canadian Privacy Law blog that delves into this issue.
David Canton – for the London Free Press – July 15, 2006
The federal privacy commissioner recently released her report to Parliament on the Privacy Act, which applies to privacy issues for the government.
The commissioner calls for a review of current privacy legislation, and makes a strong case that a complete overhaul is long overdue.
She says it has been more than 20 years since the Privacy Act came into being, and that technological and social change in the last 20 years has left the legislation in dire need of change.
The report reminds us that a detailed review by the privacy commissioner’s office entitled Privacy Act Reform: Issue Identification and Review was submitted to the Department of Justice in June 2000.
The government failed to act on it.
Citing the creation of the Internet and the World Wide Web, new information and communication technologies, globalization, the global positioning system, video surveillance, outsourcing, data mining and the commodification of personal information, she makes a strong case.
She says Canadians are much more familiar with the privacy protection principles underlying the private sector and should expect that personal information in the hands of the government has at least as much protection as personal information in the hands of businesses.
The commissioner’s position is that any person must have the right to apply for access to their personal information held by a Canadian government institution. A person must also be able to challenge in court any refusal of access to their personal information.
The commissioner takes the position that accountability and transparency of government institutions with respect to personal information and reporting requirements need to be strengthened.
She says parliamentary committees need appropriate support and resources to review the personal information practices of government institutions, as well as their performance of Privacy Act responsibilities.
The commissioner says that to be effective, the Privacy Act needs to be superior to other legislation. All federal government institutions should be subject to it. Of particular note are the officers of Parliament, Crown corporations and other entities that carry out important functions related to public health and safety that must also be subject to the Privacy Act.
There is also an issue with private contractors who have, collect or process personal information, some of which lie outside of Canada.
The item that received the most publicity was the sharing of personal information at the Canada-U.S. border.
According to the report, the Canadian Border Services Agency regularly gives out information to its counterparts in the United States by phone rather than in writing.
The rules provide that exchanges of information must be done in writing except under extreme circumstances.
The purpose of that is to leave a paper trail of what information has been provided and to whom. It has instead become common for Canadian officers to read out information over the phone in response to requests.
The commissioner is pushing hard for a review of the legislation by Parliament and for new agreements on information sharing with the United States.
The report outlines 19 recommendations for change. It outlines many committees, reports and recommendations that have resulted in few changes since the Privacy Act’s inception.
There is a suggestion that the new government’s mandate centring on accountability will lead to amendments to the Privacy Act. But calls for reform have gone unheeded for two decades, and with this report released days before Parliament broke for the summer, it seems unlikely that we will see these issues addressed quickly.
It’s now up to the government.
That’s the title of a post by Steve Rubel of Micro Persuation. I saw him speak at the Mesh conference a while back. Basicaly he says the best bloggers offer something useful and constructive. Its worth a read.
I hope this blog passes his test.
ITBusiness.ca has an article about a recent decision of the Ontario Assessment Review Board that says a business that produces an intangible asset as opposed to a saleable product qualifies for commercial rather than industrial property tax assessment. The case dealt with a company that developed software, but did not itself turn it into a saleable product.
That results in lower municipal property taxes.
I have not looked at the decision itself, but any business that might be in that category should take a closer look to see if they might qualify.
Slashdot refers to an article on the web site of the Louisiana State University in Shreveport that says a state agency accessed the Facebook profile of a job applicant. Nothing surprising about that, but they took it a step farther and used Patriot Act authority to get into the applicant’s private portion of his profile that was supposed to be accessible only to those the applicant granted access to.
Concerns have been raised that when Canadian info is stored or processed in the US, the US government has access to it under laws like the Patriot Act. Some say it doesn’t matter, as why would the US government ever want info on any of us?
Perhaps this is an indication of just how low the threshold is for personal info to be accessed. Certainly cause for reflection.
Ann Cavoukian – the Ontario Privacy Commissioner – sent me a letter following my recent newspaper article saying merchants should not print debit or credit card numbers on receipts. My article referred to an Alberta privacy decision.
That is a practice I believe violates privacy laws – but full numbers are printed far too often.
The commissioner says: I wanted you to know that I feel strongly about the privacy issues raised in this case, since it clearly illustrates the risks to individuals arising from the poor information management and security practices of arganizations.
Attached to the letter are summaries of Mastercard and Visa policies for truncating numbers, and US national standards. In the long run, those are all good news – the issue is one of timing.
The letter is a good read for anyone interested in the issue.
In the meantime, continue to mention the issue to merchants that print the entire number.
David Canton – For the London Free Press – July 8, 2006
The Supreme Court of Canada recently dealt with the protection afforded famous trade-marks â particularly Barbie and Veuve Clicquot.
Companies with famous trade-marks are eager to protect the image and goodwill associated with their brands. Itâs no surprise that battles over famous trade-marks frequently take place in the courts.
Earlier this year, the Federal Court heard a case involving the famous trade-mark âJaguar.â The matter pitted the luxury automaker against a manufacturer of low-end backpacks and tote bags that also used the Jaguar trade-mark on its products.
The car manufacturer argued that as a famous brand it deserved increased protection for its trade-marks to prevent other companies from capitalizing on the goodwill associated with the mark or tarnishing the markâs image in the minds of consumers.
The court decided the Jaguar brand was sufficiently famous to deserve extra protection.
Since the release of the Federal Courtâs decision, however, the Supreme Court of Canada has weighed in on the issue with the recent release of two separate decisions about famous trade-marks.
The Jaguar case may have been decided differently if it had been heard after these Supreme Court cases, which take precedence over Federal Court decisions.
Mattel Inc., the makers of Barbie dolls, went up against a small chain of restaurants in Montreal operating under the name âBarbieâs.â The restaurant chain was attempting to register the trade-mark and related design.
Mattel opposed the application, claiming the Barbie trade-mark is so famous that it cannot be used in Canada on most consumer products without the average consumer believing the two brands are connected.
Veuve Clicquot, the luxury champagne maker, argued that a mid-priced womenâs clothing store operating under the name âCliquotâ infringed on the companyâs trade-mark rights. Veuve Clicquot argued the confusion created in the minds of consumers would be detrimental to the image and goodwill associated with the brand.
In both cases, the court decided against the famous trade-mark holder.
In the Barbie case, the court indicated the use of the name Barbieâs by the restaurant was unlikely to create confusion among consumers. The products and services provided by the two companies were sufficiently different that confusion was not likely to occur.
Similarly, in the Veuve Clicquot case, the court decided there was an adequate difference between high-end champagne and mid-priced womenâs wear that it was unlikely confusion would result.
According to these decisions, being famous is not alone an adequate reason to provide extended protection for a trade-mark.
Fame is only one factor to be considered.
Perhaps I comment on this too often, but the entertainment industry continues to demonstrate they don’t get the big picture (no pun intended).
Techdirt has a post about the efforts being taken to stop people from using snippets of movies or TV or still photos on their blogs or web sites – even though they are only using them as fans. I suspect many of these uses fall within the US doctrine of fair use. Regardless, one would think that in most cases the publicity gained would far outweigh any negative effects.
Microsoft has been taking some heat over its Windows Genuine Advantage antipiracy program that checks to see if you have a valid license for Windows.
The complaint is that users were mislead and not told what the code did, and that there may be privacy issues surrounding the data that is returned.
I don’t know enough detail to provide a personal opinion on this – but consider whether it is (a) an opportunity seized by zealous class action lawyers, (b) surreptitious action by Microsoft using questionable privacy practices, or (c) somewhere in the middle.
No matter what the outcome, it illustrates the tug between companies trying to get paid for their products, the methods they use to enforce that, and whether those efforts are in the end the best way to approach the problem.
Kevin O’Keefe’s Real Lawyers Have Blogs had a post yesterday about some discussion that started at BusinessWeek about whether the blogosphere is losing credibility because of the amount of boring and stupid things it contains.
As Kevin points out, if bloggers say something offbase, others are eager to comment.
As I pointed out in a comment I left on his site, blogs started out without credibility, but have gained it over time as people adopted them for strategic value.
It also puts it in perspective if one understands the long tail theory. (See my post from yesterday about Chris Anderson’s book of that name.) Yes, there is a lot of stuff out that there without appeal, but “post-filters” such as search engines, user recommendations, reviews, and other blogs help each of us find and separate what is useful to each of us.
Unless otherwise stated, all original material created by David Canton included in this blog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
