Alberta narrowly avoids missing deadline on privacy law

Late last week, the Supreme Court of Canada extended the deadline for Alberta to revise its Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), which the court had ruled unconstitutional. The November 15 deadline has now been pushed back six months, allaying fears that a void in privacy protections would harm businesses and consumers.

Late last week, the Supreme Court of Canada extended the deadline for Alberta to revise its Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), which the court had ruled unconstitutional. The November 15 deadline has now been pushed back six months, allaying fears that a void in privacy protections would harm businesses and consumers.

On November 15, 2013, the SCC struck down the law, giving the province exactly one year to fix it, but Alberta warned it wouldn’t be able to amend PIPA in time because it had delayed its first legislative session under new Premier Jim Prentice until November 17.

In early October the province filed a motion asking the SCC for the six-month extension
. Tony Morris, a privacy lawyer at Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP, says he’s watching intensely to see how Alberta will address PIPA’s shortcomings. That response, he says, could influence an array of privacy legislation, such as Canada’s two federal privacy laws: the Privacy Act and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

“The privacy Bar across the country is looking at Alberta in this particular case because of its potential impact to PIPEDA and the BC legislation, and potentially any other privacy legislation that may be enacted by any other province.”

But no one had expected an unbridled invasion of privacy rights while the government dithers
Even if PIPA had lapsed, federal law (namely PIPEDA) automatically would have kicked in, points out Shana Wolch at McCarthy Tétrault LLP. “Without PIPA we just become the same as Ontario, Saskatchewan and other provinces that don’t have private-sector privacy legislation.”