New personal data protection bill filed in the Commons

The bill will be presented by the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne. It aims to advance Canada’s Digital Charter, strengthen consumer privacy protections and establish clear rules to ensure fair competition in the online marketplace.

The Digital Charter is based on ten principles that range from the control parameters of Canadian companies ’personal information to financial penalties in case this data is misused.

The bill is expected to restore some elements of a previous bill, introduced by the Liberals in late 2020, but never became law.

This bill requires companies to obtain explicit consent from their customers, not a lengthy legal document, before using their personal data.

It is also intended to ensure that Canadians can request the permanent deletion of their information on social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter.

The old version of the bill provided for giving greater power to the federal privacy commissioner to force the hand of organizations or companies to stop collecting data or using information or even recommend that Privacy and Data Protection The tribunal will impose fines.

However, it ignored long -standing requests from privacy advocates, along with federal privacy law that also applies to political parties.

privacy, a fundamental rights

Former privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien, whose term ended in early June after eight years and has long been pushing for reforms, criticized the previous bill for saying it qualified as overall decrease compared to current law.

In May 2021, he lamented that it would give consumers little control over their personal data.

According to Therrien, the bill prioritizes commercial interests over people’s right to privacy. He called for the adoption of a framework that would uphold privacy as a human right, ahead of the dissolution of the House of Commons and the call for a general election last summer.

Philippe Dufresne, a government candidate to replace outgoing commissioner Daniel Therrien, told the Commons committee this week that the upcoming bill should recognize privacy as a fundamental rights.