PIPEDA- Data Protection tale of Canada, Part-1

“All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.”

By -Gabriel García Márquez, A life

Canada – the name originates from a Saint Lawrence Iroquoian word Kanata or Canada which means a Village or Settlement. We all are well versed with the fact that Canada is known as the country of Immigrants.

The Canadian federation consists of 13 provinces. With the growing time and boost in globalisation the desire was emerged out among many civilised countries to formulate the rules pertaining to the personal data of Individuals.

Gone are those days where food, clothing and shelter used to be the basic necessity of an individual now the era is where humans want peace with their privacy too.

I would like to quote here an investigatory conversation that occurred between Mark Zuckerberg and Senator (infamously known as Facebook hearing)-

Image taken from https://hostingcanada.org/privacy-law-canada/

“Sen. Richard J. Durbin asks, “Mr. Zuckerberg, would you be comfortable to share with us the name of the hotel you stayed in last night?

Mark– No.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin asks – “If you messaged anybody this week, would you share with us the names of the people you’ve messaged?

Mark- Senetor, No, I would not probably choose to do that publicly

Sen. Richard J. Durbin“Here, I think that may be what this is all about”.”

From the above discussion it seems all so clear that how the breach of individual’s data has shaken the soul of people. At present, almost every welfare state has data protection laws in place, so does Canada. PIPEDA- Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (hereinafter referred as PIPEDA) received royal assent on 13th April, 2000 and enforcement of it came in various stages beginning from 1st January 2002 to 1st January 2004.

Purpose of PIPEDA

In brevity the purpose of PIPEDA is to protect the personal information and the information as consented to be given by an individual to be used only for those particular purposes and no other. The purpose of the act is to establish rules to govern the collection, use and disclosure of personal information in a manner that recognises the right of privacy of individuals with respect to their personal information and the need of organisation to collect.

….to be continued

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