Our Privacy and Access to Information Group

For many years in Canada, governments and other public bodies at both the federal and provincial levels have been regulated by privacy and access to information laws, which limit what the public sector can do with personal information and which give the public the right to obtain information in the possession of the public sector.

Over the last decade or so, laws have also been introduced at both the federal and provincial levels to regulate the collection, use and disclosure of personal information by private organizations in the course of commercial activities.  Québec was the first province to enact such private-sector privacy legislation in 1994 with An Act respecting the Protection of Personal Information in the Private Sector.  The federal government and the governments of British Columbia and Alberta followed thereafter, each enacting its own private-sector privacy law; respectively, the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act enacted in 2000, the British Columbia Personal Information Protection Act enacted in 2003 and the Alberta Personal Information Protection Act enacted in 2003, each of which fully came into force in 2004.  The privacy of personal health information has also been a concern to legislatures, with the enactment of specific laws such as the Personal Health Information Protection Act (Ontario) and the Health Information Act (Alberta).

The aim of our Privacy and Access to Information Group is to coordinate and develop the firm’s practice in respect of both public-sector and private-sector privacy and access to information.  This includes creating and sharing expertise, raising awareness among our clients of the requirements of applicable privacy laws, and participating in the efforts of the legal profession to work with governmental agencies in the drafting, implementation and administration of those laws.

Our Services

Members of the BLG Privacy and Access to Information Group have developed expertise in the areas of public-sector and private-sector privacy, both at the provincial and federal levels. 

Our Privacy and Access to Information Group provides a full range of services related to privacy and access to information to respond to the challenges faced by our clients with regard to the personal information that they hold in respect of their employees, members and clients, including the following services:

• We advise clients in respect of applicable privacy laws, including their impact on commercial agreements, due diligence as well as purchase and sale agreements.
• We work with our clients to ensure that their Canadian business operations comply with applicable privacy legislation.
• We provide privacy advice from a labour and employment perspective.  This includes advising employers on their obligations in respect of employee files and access thereto, communication of employee information to third parties and the management of employee files in the event of a sale of the employer’s business.  We also advise on and assist in the preparation of workplace privacy policies, including such specific areas as background checks, biometric identifiers, workplace surveillance and computer monitoring. 
• We advise clients on the implementation of contractual privacy protections, most notably when client lists are sold and when clients outsource services to third-party service providers. We also advise clients in respect of the transfer of personal information outside Québec and/or Canada, including to the United States.
• We assist clients in the design and implementation of privacy policies generally, including website privacy policies, and in drafting consent forms, consent clauses and confidentiality agreements.
• We assist clients in responding to requests from employees and third parties for access to information held by our clients. We also advise clients when their confidential information, which is held by government bodies, is the subject of a request for access to information by a third party. 
• We advise clients on how to best respond to privacy complaints and inquiries as well as privacy breaches.
• We advise clients on the impact of new technology (e.g. RFID technology) on privacy compliance.

BLG also has the largest and most comprehensive health law practice in Canada, with significant expertise in health privacy issues.  We advise our health care clients, and other clients who deal with the health industry, on the specific and additional requirements involved in the collection, use and disclosure of personal health information.

Our Experience

We have expertise in both the area of access to information and governmental privacy as well as the area of private-sector privacy.  We, together with members of our Health Law, Biotech and Pharmaceutical, Labour and Employment, Information Technology, and Corporate Commercial Groups, advise clients in a variety of different industries (including hospitals and other health establishments, pharmaceutical companies, banks, credit unions, personal information agents, securities dealers, advisers and firms, insurance companies and retailers) on all aspects of privacy compliance.  We also work closely with privacy commissioners in order to best advise our clients.