Michael Geist posts about yesterday’s Federal Court decision in respect of the Privacy Commissioner and investigations outside Canada.
The issue was whether the Privacy Commissioner can investigate a case affecting a Canadian’s private information being collected and sold by a foreign company. The case was raised by Pippa Lawson of CIPPIC.
After protracted correspondence and discussion, on 18 November 2005 the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, through Heather Black, Assistant Privacy Commissioner, refused to investigate. Although the refusal deals with a number of issues, in essence the Privacy Commissioner was of the view that PIPEDA did not give her jurisdiction to investigate Ms. Lawson’s complaint. This is a judicial review of that decision, a decision which raises important questions about the extraterritorial effect of Canada’s laws and the jurisdiction of Canadian tribunals absent a real and substantial connection with this country.
Among other cases, the Court looked at SOCAN vs CAIP where the Supreme Court said “To occur in Canada, a communication need not originate from a server located in Canada.”
national practice confirms that either the country of transmission or the country of reception may take jurisdiction over a ‘communication’ link to its territory
Congratulations to Pippa and CIPPIC for not letting go.
Is there further applicability to having other Federal agencies examine their role governing the transmission of illegal content on the internet?
Technorati Tags:
privacy, court, illegal content