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Posts Tagged ‘privacy’

Personal information online: new tools, old responsibilities

Monday, October 24th, 2011

Sometimes, technology creates new ways to exploit information faster than the law and business can keep up. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is trying to make sure that doesn’t happen in the case of behavioural advertising. Last year, the Privacy Commissioner conducted consultations on the new ways that organizations are collecting and using customers’ personal information, and prepared its Report on the 2010 Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s Consultations on Online Tracking, Profiling and Targeting, and Cloud Computing.

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Tags: behavioural advertising, marketing, mobile technology, Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, oipc, privacy, Privacy Commissioner, profiling, targeting, technology, tracking
Posted in Human Resources, Internal Controls, IT, Privacy and Security, Privacy and Security | Make a Comment »

Do you offer ‘paperless receipts’?

Monday, October 3rd, 2011

If you do, you should make sure you understand the privacy and personal information implications. CTV reports that some Canadian retailers are now offering their customers an “e-receipt”, which they can receive by email or access at dedicated websites. Sure, it’s a “green” option, and maybe more convenient for customers who want to track their purchases, but it requires the customer to provide an email address, which might allow retailers to “learn a lot about a customer’s preferences and buying habits”.

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Tags: anti-spam law, e-receipt, electronic marketing, FAPP, Finance and Accounting PolicyPro, marketing, paperless receipt, personal information, Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, PIPEDA, privacy, privacy law, spam
Posted in Internal Controls, IT, Privacy and Security | 2 Comments »

Facebook, privacy and the workplace

Monday, August 22nd, 2011

You might have heard about the case in which two car dealership workers were fired for cause after they wrote offensive and harassing messages on Facebook about their employer and managers.

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Tags: facebook, Facebook firing, policy, privacy, social media, social media policy, social networking, termination, workplace harassment
Posted in Human Resources, Human Rights, Internal Controls, IT, Privacy and Security, Privacy and Security | Make a Comment »

Online security – not just for big business

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

Surely you’ve heard about the major security and data breaches that Sony has experienced this year. It’s bad. It’s a liability. Despite the popularity of their online services, they’ll have to work hard to regain customers’ loyalty. Other big names have experienced similar attacks.

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Tags: attack, classified information, credit card data, cyber-thieves, Data breach, FAPP, Finance and Accounting PolicyPro, hackers, hacking, Information Technology PolicyPro, ITPP, loyalty, Network Security, online security, privacy, proprietary information, risk management, SMBs, Sony, Symantec
Posted in Finance and Accounting, Internal Controls, IT, Privacy and Security | Make a Comment »

Employees with disabilities: disclosure v. privacy

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

One of the most difficult decisions employees or applicants have to make is to decide whether to inform their employer of their non-obvious disabilities. Why?

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Tags: disclosure, Disclosure of a disability, discrimination, duty to accommodate, Employees with disabilities, employment law, privacy, work environment
Posted in Accessibility Standards, Human Resources, Human Rights, Privacy and Security, Standard for Employment | 2 Comments »

Employers may not be able to conduct Facebook checks on prospective employees

Friday, September 3rd, 2010

I just read an interesting article saying that Germany may be the first to pass a law making it illegal for prospective employers to spy on applicants’ private postings on Facebook. Do you think this type of law could ever be passed in Canada?

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Tags: background checks, balance between employee rights to privacy and employer rights to know, Employee privacy rights, Employment background checks, employment law, facebook, Facebook checks on prospective employees, Germany, Monitoring, privacy, Privacy in the workplace, selection process, social media, social media activities at work, social networks, spy on employees, surveillance
Posted in Human Resources, Privacy and Security, Recruiting and Hiring | Make a Comment »

Facebook faces privacy questions… again

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

Over the past couple of years, Facebook has had run-ins with the Canadian Privacy Commissioner. And Canada’s not alone; privacy watchdogs in the United States and around the world have been critical of Facebook’s willingness to sacrifice users’ personal data in the name of social media…

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Tags: facebook, privacy, privacy and risk management, privacy by design, Privacy Commissioner, privacy rights, social media, social networking, twitter
Posted in Internal Controls, IT, Privacy and Security | Make a Comment »

Customer privacy policies and employee handling of customer personal information

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

A weekend Toronto Star article reported that employees at the Canada Revenue Agency are improperly reviewing the private financial affairs of taxpayers. Some are using agency computers to give favoured treatment to colleagues, friends, family—and themselves…

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Tags: Canada Revenue Agency, CRA, customer personal information, disclosure of personal information, employment law, personal information, personal information protection, PIPA, PIPEDA, privacy, privacy and risk management, privacy breach, privacy legislation, privacy policy, privacy rights
Posted in Human Resources, Internal Controls, IT, Privacy and Security, Privacy and Security | Make a Comment »

Amendments to PIPEDA disappoint privacy watchdogs

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

On May 29, the federal government introduced Bill C-29, the Safeguarding Canadians’ Personal Information Act, which makes substantial changes to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). The Bill had been in development for several years, and one of its primary objectives was to address a significant gap in PIPEDA, the issue of mandatory disclosure of “material” breaches of personal information by the companies or organizations responsible.

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Tags: disclosure of personal information, employee personal information, employment law, Finance and Accounting PolicyPro, Human Resources, information breaches, Information Technology PolicyPro, Janet Lo, Michael Geist, not-for-profit policypro, personal information, personal information protection, Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, PIPEDA, privacy, privacy breach, privacy legislation, Safeguarding Canadians' Personal Information Act
Posted in Human Resources, Internal Controls, IT, Privacy and Security, Privacy and Security | Make a Comment »

Privacy risk management – by design

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

I’ve discussed the Privacy by Design principle before, in the Inside Internal Control newsletter. In case you don’t know, PbD is an approach developed by Dr. Ann Cavoukian, the Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, which proactively embeds privacy protection by default in the design of an organization’s practices and products.

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Tags: confidentiality, employee personal information, PbD, PbD principles, personal information, privacy, privacy and risk management, privacy by design, Privacy Commissioner, privacy legislation
Posted in Human Resources, Internal Controls, IT, Privacy and Security, Privacy and Security | Make a Comment »

The new age of workplace gossip – TMI!

Monday, April 26th, 2010

I’ve discussed workplace gossip here before, and what bosses can do to prevent it or at least reduce the potential harm, but there are a couple of hyper-modern developments that I didn’t get into: reality television and the Internet. These two things have created a culture of “sharing”, for lack of a better word, that encourages people at play or work to divulge the most mundane and private details of their lives to others—the kind of information that one previously might only have shared with family or best friends.

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Tags: employee relations, Employer liability, gossip, oversharing, personal information, privacy, social media
Posted in Human Resources, Human Rights, Privacy and Security | Make a Comment »

When did privacy become such a huge issue?

Monday, March 29th, 2010

I guess you’ve heard about some of the privacy breaches of the past few years. You know, the one where a major Canadian bank faxed personal information on thousands of customers to two random businesses in West Virginia and Quebec, or where the public officials left work laptops or memory keys unattended with unencrypted private data on citizens and they were stolen, and on and on. What’s happening? Why are these accidents popping up so frequently now?

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Tags: ontario, privacy, privacy breach, privacy legislation
Posted in Human Resources, Internal Controls, IT, Privacy and Security, Privacy and Security | Make a Comment »

Collecting human rights-based data – yes you can!

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) recently launched a new guide that provides information and advice on collecting human rights-based data in a wide variety of sectors across Ontario. The guide, Count me in!, aims to dispel fears of collecting human rights-based data, and provides a plain language, common-sense framework for collecting said data in a way that can build trust and encourage proactive solutions.

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Tags: collecting data, collecting human rights based data, human rights, ontario, Ontario human rights commission, privacy
Posted in Human Resources, Human Rights | Make a Comment »

Who’s looking at your garbage, and why should you care?

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

You know what happens when you dump your garbage in the bin, right? The garbage collectors pick it up and take it away, and you don’t worry about it any more. But should you worry about it? A 2009 Supreme Court of Canada decision suggests you might want to.

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Tags: canadian charter of rights and freedoms, garbage search, policies and procedures, privacy, R. v. Patrick, supreme court, waste search
Posted in Internal Controls, IT, Privacy and Security | 2 Comments »

Background checks: Of job applications and credit checks

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

Starting in 2006, Mark’s Work Wearhouse in Alberta was running background credit checks on employees looking for work at the clothing store. Not criminal record checks; not general reference checks; credit checks.

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Tags: Alberta, background checks, credit checks, discrimination, employment reference, personal information, PIPA, privacy, privacy legislation, private sector privacy legislation, reference checking
Posted in Human Resources, Recruiting and Hiring | 4 Comments »

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