Monday, 09 July 2018 06:59

PIPEDA reform should include a comprehensive rewrite

Written by  Teresa Scassa
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The pressure is on for Canada to amend its Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. The legislation, by any measure, is sorely out of date and not up to the task of protecting privacy in the big data era. We know this well enough – the House of Commons ETHI Committee recently issued a report calling for reform, and the government, in its response has acknowledge the need for changes to the law. The current and past privacy Commissioners have also repeatedly called for reform, as have privacy experts. There are many deficiencies with the law – one very significant one is the lack of serious measures to enforce privacy obligations. In this regard, a recent private member’s bill proposes amendments that would give the Commissioner much more substantial powers of enforcement. Other deficiencies can be measured against the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). If Canada cannot meet the levels of protection offered by the GDPR, personal data flows from the EU to Canada could be substantially disrupted. Among other things, the GDPR addresses issues such as the right to be forgotten, the right to an explanation of how automated decisions are reached, data portability rights, and many other measures specifically designed to address the privacy challenges of the big data era.

There is no doubt that these issues will be the subject of much discussion and may well feature in any proposals to reform PIPEDA that will be tabled in Parliament, perhaps as early as this autumn. The goal of this post is not to engage with these specific issues of reform, as important as they are; rather, it is to tackle another very basic problem with PIPEDA and to argue that it too should be addressed in any legislative reform. Simply put, PIPEDA is a dog’s-breakfast statute that is difficult to read and understand. It needs a top-to-bottom rewriting according to the best principles of plain-language drafting.

PIPEDA’s drafting has been the subject of commentary by judges of the Federal Court who have the task of interpreting it. For example, in Miglialo v. Royal Bank of Canada, Justice Roy described PIPEDA as a “a rather peculiar piece of legislation”, and “not an easily accessible statute”. The Federal Court of Appeal in Telus v. Englander observed that PIPEDA was a “compromise as to form” and that “The Court is sometimes left with little, if any guidance at all”. In Johnson v. Bell Canada, Justice Zinn observed: “While Part I of the Act is drafted in the usual manner of legislation, Schedule 1, which was borrowed from the CSA Standard, is notably not drafted following any legislative convention.” In Fahmy v. Royal Bank of Canada, Justice Roy noted that it was “hardly surprising” “[t]hat a party would misunderstand the scope of the Act.”

To understand why PIPEDA is such a mess requires some history. PIPEDA was passed by Parliament in 2000. Its enactment followed closely on the heels of the EU’s Data Protection Directive, which, like the GDPR, threatened to disrupt data flows to countries that did not meet minimum standards of private sector data protection. Canada needed private sector data protection legislation and it needed it fast. It was not clear that the federal government really had jurisdiction over private sector data protection, but it was felt that the rapid action needed did not leave time to develop cooperative approaches with the provinces. The private sector did not want such legislation. As a compromise, the government decided to use the CSA Model Code – a voluntary privacy code developed with multi-stakeholder input – as the normative heart of the statute. There had been enough buy-in with the Model Code that the government felt that it avoid excessive pushback from the private sector. The Code, therefore, originally drafted to provide voluntary guidance, was turned into law. The prime minister at the time, the Hon. Jean Chretien, did not want Parliament’s agenda overburdened with new bills, so the data protection bill was grafted onto another bill addressing the completely different issue of electronic documents (hence the long, unwieldy name that gives rise to the PIPEDA acronym).

The result is a legislative Frankenstein. Keep in mind that this is a law aimed at protecting individual privacy. It is a kind of consumer-protection statute that should be user-friendly, but it is not. Most applicants to the Federal Court under PIPEDA are self-represented, and they clearly struggle with the legislation. The sad irony is that if a consumer wants to complain to the Privacy Commissioner about a company’s over-long, horribly convoluted, impossible to understand, non-transparent privacy policy, he or she will have to wade through a statute that is like a performance-art parody of that same privacy policy. Of course, the problem is not just one for ordinary consumers. Lawyers and even judges (as evidenced above) find PIPEDA to be impenetrable.

By way of illustration, if you are concerned about your privacy rights and want to know what they are, you will not find them in the statute itself. Instead, the normative provisions are in the CSA Model Code, which is appended as Schedule I of the Act. Part I of the Act contains some definitions, a few general provisions, and a whole raft of exceptions to the principle of consent. Section 6.1 tells you what consent means “for the purposes of clause 4.3 of Schedule 1”, but you will have to wait until you get to the schedule to get more details on consent. On your way to the Schedule you might get tangled up in Part II of the Act which is about electronic documents, and thus thoroughly irrelevant.

Because the Model Code was just that – a model code – it was drafted in a more conversational style, and includes notes that provide examples and illustrations. For the purposes of the statute, some of these notes were considered acceptable – others not. Hence, you will find the following statement in s. 2(2) of PIPEDA: “In this Part, a reference to clause 4.3 or 4.9 of Schedule 1 does not include a reference to the note that accompanies that clause.” So put a yellow sticky tab on clauses 4.3 and 4.9 to remind you not to consider those notes as part of the law (even though they are in the Schedule).

Then there is this: s. 5(2) of PIPEDA tells us: “The word should, when used in Schedule 1, indicates a recommendation and does not impose an obligation.” So use those sticky notes again. Or cross out “should” each of the fourteen times you find it in Schedule 1, and replace it with “may”.

PIPEDA also provides in ss. 7(4) and 7(5) that certain actions are permissible despite what is said in clause 4.5 of Schedule 1. Similar revisionism is found in s. 7.4. While clause 4.9 of Schedule 1 talks about requests for access to personal information made by individuals, section 8(1) in Part 1of the Act tells us those requests have to be made in writing, and s. 8 goes on to provide further details on the right of access. Section 9 qualifies the right of access with “Despite clause 4.9 of Schedule 1….”. You can begin to see how PIPEDA may have contributed significantly to the sales of sticky notes.

If an individual files a complaint and is not satisfied with the Commissioner’s report of findings, he or she has a right to take the matter to Federal Court if their issue fits within s. 14, which reads:

 

14 (1) A complainant may, after receiving the Commissioner’s report or being notified under subsection 12.2(3) that the investigation of the complaint has been discontinued, apply to the Court for a hearing in respect of any matter in respect of which the complaint was made, or that is referred to in the Commissioner’s report, and that is referred to in clause 4.1.3, 4.2, 4.3.3, 4.4, 4.6, 4.7 or 4.8 of Schedule 1, in clause 4.3, 4.5 or 4.9 of that Schedule as modified or clarified by Division 1 or 1.1, in subsection 5(3) or 8(6) or (7), in section 10 or in Division 1.1. [My emphasis]

 

Enough said.

There are a number of very important substantive privacy issues brought about by the big data era. We are inevitably going to see PIPEDA reform in the relatively near future, as a means of not only addressing these issues but of keeping us on the right side of the GDPR. As we move towards major PIPEDA reform, however, the government should seriously consider a crisp rewrite of the legislation. The maturity of Canada’s data protection regime should be made manifest in a statute that no longer needs to lean on the crutch of a model code for its legitimacy. Quite apart from the substance of such a document, it should:

 

· Set out its basic data protection principles in the body of the statute, near the front of the statute, and in a manner that is clear, readable and accessible to a lay public.

· Be a free-standing statute that deals with data protection and that does not deal with unrelated extraneous matters (such as electronic documents).

 

It is not a big ask. British Columbia and Alberta managed to do it when they created their own substantially similar data protection statutes. Canadians deserve good privacy legislation, and they deserve to have it drafted in a manner that is clear and accessible. Rewriting PIPEDA (and hence renaming it) should be part of the coming legislative reform.

Teresa Scassa

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