PIPEDA complaints double, many target Bell’s tracking program

Complaints to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada nearly doubled in 2013 from the previous year as concerns about BCE Inc.'s advertising and tracking program filled the commissioner’s inbox. According to the privacy commissioner’s annual report to Parliament, released Thursday, there were 426 complaints made under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) in 2013, of which 166 were related to Bell's advertising program announced in October. The company had said it would begin tracking subscribers’ habits, including the websites they visit, web searches, mobile application usage, TV viewing and other location-related information available on users’ cellphones to “improve network performance and product offers through new business and marketing reports.” In the Thursday report, Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien said the 166 complaints were incorporated into a single investigation, which is still ongoing. After a CRTC challenge filed by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and a series of hearings on the Bell's tracking and targeted advertising, a Senate committee found the program does not have the potential to reveal subscribers’ identities to other parties. In an Thursday email, Bell spokesman Jason Laszlo said the company’s targeted advertising program “is fully compliant with federal privacy guidelines, the Telecommunications Act and all applicable CRTC regulations.” Even without the objections to the Bell tracking program, the commissioner saw a 17 per cent increase in the number of complaints it received under PIPEDA. The office of the privacy commissioner enforces both PIPEDA, which applies to the private sector, and the Privacy Act, which applies to the protection of personal information in the public sector. The office of the privacy commissioner also called for an overhaul of its powers under PIPEDA, asking the government to give the office stronger enforcement powers, require organizations to disclose every breach of personal information and how often law enforcement requests personal user information. The changes would “bring our enforcement powers more in line with the global norm,” the report said. In the report, Therrien also called on websites and tech companies to be more transparent with their privacy policies. In May 2013, the privacy commissioner’s office directed in an international collaboration between privacy authorities that looked at the privacy policies of more than 2,000 websites and mobile apps that found “numerous concerns.” “In today’s digital marketplace, websites and apps regularly collect a wide range of personal information — everything from a person’s location and online activities to their personal preferences and credit card information,” Therrien said in the report. “Companies must develop dynamic, creative ways of sharing privacy-related information to allow individuals to make informed decisions.” A letter-writing campaign resulted in changes to the policies of 40 websites and mobile apps, according to the report. The commissioner drew attention to Apple Inc.’s promise to make it easier to download free mobile applications from the company’s App Store without handing over a credit card and date of birth. Although Apple already had such a system in place, the privacy commissioner said “the workaround for the free apps was not evident” and asked the company to make the process more clear. Apple has promised to do so by fall 2014, according to the release. Google Inc. also came into the privacy commissioner’s crosshairs after a complaint that the search giant allows third-party companies to serve targeted ads based on search results, in the case of the complainant about a specific medical device. “An investigation found that the use of sensitive personal information in this manner did not correspond to the wording stated in Google’s own privacy policy,” the commissioner's report said Thursday. Companies need to obtain meaningful consent before they use personal information online, the report said. — With reporting by Peter Henderson at phenderson@thewirereport.ca and editing by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca

PIPEDA complaints double, many target Bell’s tracking program

News | August 21, 2014

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