Cablecos and broadcasters enact measures to conform with new privacy legislation

Consumers now have recourse if cablecos or broadcasters collect, use or disclose personal information about them without their consent. As federally regulated private companies, broadcasters and cablecos along with telcos and banks are among the first group to be subject to the new Personal Information and Protection and Electronic Documents Act. Cablecos and broadcasters say they’ve taken measures to ensure they conform to the new legislation, which came into effect Jan. 1. Both the Canadian Cable Television Association and the Canadian Association of Broadcasters have developed privacy codes to help their members comply with the law, sometimes referred to as Bill C-6. "The most important thing," says Philippa Lawson, a lawyer with the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, "is the companies that these associations represent must comply with the law. The codes don’t have legal force. Now that we have a law in place, those codes, in my view, should be establishing best business practices above and beyond the minimum necessary under the law, and should be helping their members by elaborating on what the law says." Lawson says companies should be separating the essential information that they need to provide a service from the non-essential information. For example, a company asking for an email address to bill electronically for a cable service would be fine, she says, but if the address is going to be used to market other services than the customer should be allowed to opt out. Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa Law School and director of e-commerce law at Goodmans LLP, says the law has "teeth." Geist says privacy commissioner George Radwanski, who acts as a privacy ombudsman under the law, can award punitive damages, but that his main tool is publicity generated through the issuing of reports on breaches of the law. As Lawson notes, "If the privacy commissioner receives a complaint and finds a company hasn’t been living up to the law, he would issue a report, which is not binding. …But the strongest tool that he has is publicity, and that can have dramatic effects. A lot is going to hinge on the privacy commissioner’s willingness to use the power of publicity." Anyone unhappy with the privacy commissioner’s findings can appeal to the federal court, which can award damages, and order an organization to correct its practices. The first line of protest, however, would normally be to the person responsible for privacy within each cableco and broadcaster. Both the CCTA and CAB codes suggest that each of their member companies designate an individual or individuals who would be accountable for the organization’s compliance with their codes and take complaints. CCTA president/CEO Janet Yale says the complaints could be forwarded to the Cable Television Standards Foundation, which does not have the power to impose penalties as tough as those as the federal court. "We deal with complaints regarding privacy the same way that we do with other complaints," says Gérald Lavallée, president and CEO of the foundation, noting that privacy principles have been included in customer service standards since 1992. "We don’t have the power to impose fines or jail terms, and we don’t want that power. Our power is simply to make it public. But a customer could continue the process at a higher level," he adds. Most complaints are resolved through mediation, says Lavallée, who points out that only 16 of the 3,000 complaints received last year were privacy related. Half of them, he says, were objections to requests for SIN numbers, and the other concerned technicians going into backyards to fix cable lines without asking prior permission. Lavallée notes it is the cable customer who chooses whether their complaints will go to the privacy commissioner or the cable foundation for consideration. Geist points out that a privacy study suggested that most Canadian companies were behind with regard to compliance, but he suspects that the higher profile broadcasting and cable industries are not. "The risk of not complying with the law and facing fines and adverse publicity is too great. … While (cablecos and broadcasters) collect significant data, I’m also sure that they have taken the proper measures to ensure that they’re on side with the law," he says. One company that did a "major purging of the files" as a result of a provincial privacy law enacted in Quebec in the early 1990s was Vidéotron Ltée. Privacy advocate Marie Vallée was hired as director of customer satisfaction, and the company had its managers review the types of information the company was holding, what was done with it, and if it was really necessary. More uniform information practices were implemented across the company, according to the PIAC document, "Making Privacy Policies Work." Under the new federal law, Canadians now have the right to know why firms may be collecting, using or disclosing their personal information, such as name, age, income, spending habits, marital status, etc. They also have the right to check their personal information and correct any inaccuracies. As well, individual consent must be obtained when broadcasters or cablecos collect, use, or disclose personal information, except in some situations, such as when information is needed for an investigation. The CAB’s code gives the example of a listener calling in to a radio station to enter a contest. Listeners would reasonably be expected to give their name, phone number, and some form of personal identification, but they should expect the information would not be used for any purpose other than the administration of the contest, without their knowledge and consent. "With the acceleration of electronic commerce and new advances in digital technologies, I believe that privacy will be the defining issue of the next decade," says privacy commissioner George Radwanski. "It is important that Canadians realize they have fundamental rights when it comes to privacy..."

Cablecos and broadcasters enact measures to conform with new privacy legislation

Broadcast | January 17, 2001

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