"Ready or not, the digital world is evolving fast. If everyone in Canada can participate fully, then this evolution can bring tremendous benefits to people and organizations. But we're not there yet. In the Future of Canada Centre's second report on digital equity, we outline the actions that must be taken across the three main pillars of digital equity—access, participation, and ecosystem—to connect all Canadians to an inclusive digital future."
Read the full report here: https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/ca/Documents/fcc/digital-equity-2/ca-catalyst-digital-equity2-aoda-en.pdf?icid=rp3
Excerpt: Data Privacy
Data is the most valuable resource in today’s economy. As our lives become increasingly tied to the digital world, we generate ever growing amounts of it…The data economy can offer economic and social benefits through improved public and private services, expanded consumer options, and increased efficiency. Modern privacy laws strive to realize these benefits while ensuring people have control over how their personal information is used, by whom, and why. Yet our survey found that most Canadians don’t trust organization to safely manage their data. Only 32% said they trust companies not to misuse or mismanage their personal information, with not many more – 40% – trusting governments to do the same.
Challenge: Canada’s privacy laws are outdated
Over the past decade, governments around the world have updated their privacy laws in response to the greater collection, usage, and sharing of their citizens’ personal data. These refreshed laws are intended to provide more robust data privacy rights and, at the same time, ensure that businesses can innovate in a way that is responsible and ethical. In Canada, however, despite increasing privacy risks and the outcry from advocacy groups and regulators, the privacy risks and the outcry from advocacy groups ad regulators, the privacy regime remains out of date, lagging international best practices. In 2020, the federal government introduced Bill C-11 to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA) and the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act (PDPTA), but the bill died on the order paper when the federal election was called for September 2021. The CPPA would be an important step towards privacy law reform in Canada, but legal experts and business stakeholder called for significant revisions before it was reintroduced. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) said that the bill in its current state would “represent a step back overall for privacy protection,” as its provisions were often misaligned and less protective that laws in other jurisdictions. Specifically, the draft bill gave individuals less control over their data, failed to introduce enough accountability for organizations, and did not strengthen the OPC’s ability to protect against privacy violations. In June 2022, Bill C-27, significant reworking of Bill C-11, was tabled. While this bill includes greater clarity and some stronger protections, it still lacks many of the changes recommended by the OPC.
Recommendation: Ensure Canadians have modern privacy rights
Given Canada’s constitutional distribution of legislative powers between the federal and provincial governments, it’s critical that these levels of government work together to ensure Canadians have privacy rights in all apspects of life – including commerce, health care, and employment. While Bill C-27 is a step in the right direction, more can be done to strengthen privacy rights. Specifically, the act could better articulate the weight given to privacy rights and commercial interests, given Canadians stronger privacy rights, and provide quick and effective remedies for privacy violations. This would ensure that Canadians have at least the same level of modern privacy protection seen in other leading jurisdictions, such as the European Union. Bill C-27 also does not reference the importance of Indigenous data sovereignty, which refers to the inherent and constitutionally protected rights of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples to exercise authority over the collection, ownership, and application of their data. Given the importance of data to today’s economy, Indigenous peoples must have autonomous control over how theirs is used.
I contributed to the research of this digital equity policy research report by Deloitte's Future of Canada Centre, covering topics including data privacy, cybersecurity, and broadband.
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