Privacylawyer - Canadian privacy and technology law with David Fraser

Canada's federal private-sector privacy law may be about to undergo its biggest transformation in more than 25 years. Bill C-36 would repeal the privacy provisions of PIPEDA and replace them with the new Protecting Privacy and Consumer Data Act (PPCDA). The bill introduces mandatory privacy management programs, enhanced consent requirements, new rights to dispose of personal information, privacy i...

A breakdown of Canada's newly introduced Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act. Reintroduced as an update to the controversial and stalled Bill C-63 (the Online Harms Act), Bill C-34 expands the government's regulatory scope to include not only traditional social media platforms but also AI-driven chatbots and other interactive online services. This overview covers the bill’s major changes—includin...

An Overview of Part 2 of Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act 2026. Part 2 creates the "Supporting Authorized Access to Information Act", which will require electronic service providers to create new capabilities for law enforcement and national security folks to get access to customer information. #lawfulaccess #surveillance #privacy #charterofrights Where you can find me ► Privacylawyer blog: https:...

A deep dive into the "Production Order for Subscriber Information" proposed in Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act. What is it? What does it do? What is different from the original proposal in Bill C-2 (the Strong Borders Act)? And what's the likely fatal flaw that will mean it will be found to be unconstitutional? My "Lawful Access" playlist, including episodes from this channel and other commentato...

Lawful Access playlist, including my videos and from others on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLV759uJFOchhpCq8rakXDYdwJP3xYSrtf My Bill C-22 Lawful Access "deep dive" episode: https://youtu.be/tZFbTYttuN8?list=PLV759uJFOchhpCq8rakXDYdwJP3xYSrtf Where you can find me ► Privacylawyer blog: https://blog.privacylawyer.ca ► My law firm: https://www.mcinnescooper.com/people/david-fras...

On March 12, 2026, the Canadian Public Safety Minister tabled Bill C-22 in Parliament: the Lawful Access Act, 2026, which will create new police information demands and require "electronic service providers" to create new capabilities for the interception and retrieval of data for the police and national security authorities. Part 1 is much improved since it was first introduced as Part 14 of the...

An overview of privacy law that regulates private sector businesses in Canada (or those outside of the country who deal with personal information of Canadians): the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). 0:00 Beginning 0:57 Introduction 2:23 Why Canada has a mess of privacy laws 5:43 The Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the protection of personal inform...

Online fraud is a widespread, everyday risk that affects individuals, families, businesses, and public institutions. Drawing on real-world examples from my privacy law practice, I walk through how common scams work, from email account compromises and funds-transfer fraud to tech-support scams, ransomware, and “grandparent” scams (increasingly powered by AI). I also focus on practical, concrete ste...

In this episode, I examine a recent Report of Findings and Order issued by British Columbia’s Information and Privacy Commissioner concerning the City of Richmond’s “Public Safety Camera System” field test. The City installed high-resolution intersection cameras intended to provide footage to police to help identify criminal suspects. The Commissioner concluded that the City lacked lawful authorit...

This episode of PrivacyLawyer examines proposed amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada in Bill C-16, the Protecting Victims Act, which would expand the definition of “intimate image” to include certain AI-generated and deepfake images. The episode explains how the existing offence for the non-consensual distribution of intimate images was designed around real photographs and video recordings, a...

A close look at the #PowerSchool #cybersecurity incident, perhaps the largest education-sector data breaches ever investigated in Canada, and the findings issued by the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Ontario and Alberta. PowerSchool is widely used by Canadian school boards to manage student information, including enrollment, grades, contact details, and medical alerts. In late 2024, a th...

A Canadian court has ordered French cloud provider OVH to hand over user data stored in France, the UK, and Australia—despite a French law that forbids it. The French government is objecting, but the Canadian government doesn't seem to care. What does this mean for digital sovereignty, cross-border investigations, and the limits of Canadian court jurisdiction? Lots. This episode unpacks a recent O...

On November 19, government officials surprised many by apparently calling for the revival of #LawfulAccess measures from Bill C-2, the Strong Borders Act. The presser was filled with incorrect and misleading information. Here's my take on it, with some corrections/clarifications of some pretty problematic statements. The government's press conference is here: https://youtu.be/GoQ2lL0rAJ4 My previo...

Canadian privacy lawyer David Fraser breaks down the British Columbia Court of Appeal’s recent decision in RateMDs Inc. v. Bleuler ( https://canlii.ca/t/kfhmc), a case about whether hosting online profiles, anonymous reviews, and ranking health professionals on RateMDs.com can result in a claim of invasion of privacy. David walks through the background, the arguments, why the Court found there was...

With no notice and largely out of the blue (following an opaque process), the Nova Scotia government just passed a revamped public sector privacy and access to information law, Bill 150. In this episode, I provide a high level overview of what's new, including the good, the bad and the meh. The new law can be found here: https://www.canlii.org/en/ns/laws/astat/sns-2025-c-13/latest/sns-2025-c-13.ht...

In this episode, Canadian privacy lawyer David Fraser breaks down the joint investigation by Canada’s federal and provincial privacy commissioners into TikTok — an interesting, complex and consequential privacy finding. The report tackles three major issues: whether TikTok’s data practices (especially with respect to young users who circumvent age-gating) serve a legitimate purpose, whether its co...

In this episode, David Fraser, PrivacyLawyer, unpacks the recent Ontario Divisional Court decision in Hospital for Sick Children v. Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. The case arose from ransomware attacks that temporarily encrypted servers at SickKids and the Halton Children’s Aid Society. No evidence suggested that hackers viewed, copied, or exfiltrated personal information—yet the...

The law — and the practical realities — of recording conversations in Canada. From AI wearables like the Bee that promise “always-on” memory assistance, to built-in recording and transcription on Zoom and Teams, to employees secretly recording meetings, the legal framework hasn’t really changed: one-party consent under the Criminal Code means you can record if you’re part of the conversation and y...

In August 2025, Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner issued a revised finding against the University of Waterloo for a privacy breach involving “smart” vending machines that secretly used biometric face detection technology. Students discovered the issue when an error message revealed the machines were running FacialRecognition. App.exe. In this video, privacy lawyer David Fraser explain...

Where you can find me ► Privacylawyer blog: https://blog.privacylawyer.ca ► My law firm: https://www.mcinnescooper.com/people/david-fraser ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/privacylawyer ► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidtsfraser Disclaimer: This is intended for education and information only and should not be taken as legal advice. If you need advice for your particular situation, you sho...

This video delves into the idea of warrant canaries—a transparency tool used by tech companies to signal when they’ve received secret government surveillance orders. With Canada’s new Strong Borders Act (Bill C-2) giving the Minister of Public Safety power to secretly compel electronic service providers to alter their systems for surveillance, companies operating in Canada may want to consider the...

As other countries like the UK and Australia are joining conservative US states in implementing "age verification" under the rallying cry of "protecting the children", a Canadian Senator is determined to see it come to fruition for Canada, We had a very close call last year with this being passed, so you should know what's brewing in Parliament. Here's my video on the previous version of this bill...

The Charter Statement can be found here: https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/pl/charter-charte/c2_2.html Where you can find me ► Privacylawyer blog: https://blog.privacylawyer.ca ► My law firm: https://www.mcinnescooper.com/people/david-fraser ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/privacylawyer ► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidtsfraser Disclaimer: This is intended for education and informat...

Bill C-2, the so-called Strong Borders bill is a Trojan horse that contains a new law that allows the government to order backdoors in the communications infrastructure you use every day. The government can issue secret orders and service providers are prohibited by law from disclosing vulnerabilities that bad guys could be using to illicitly access data. This is the part of the "border bill" you...

The newly elected Canadian government has introduced a bill in Parliament that addresses a whole bunch of concerns raised by the Trump government about the Canada-US border. But buried in the Bill are a whole bunch of measures that Canadian police have been clamoring for as the Supreme Court of Canada have swatted down efforts to get warrantless access to information about internet users. Here are...