On Friday, February 19, 2010, CIPPIC provided Facebook and the Privacy Commissioner a statement highlighting its concerns with respect to recent changes on Facebook.com.  The statement is intended as a follow up to CIPPIC's initial privacy complaint against Facebook and the Commissioner's resulting Report of Findings and follow up letter of resolution.  It concludes that Facebook has failed in a number of ways to live up to standards set out in that Report of Findings, and asks for remedial measures and a response within 30 days.

CIPPIC has added its name to the growing list of experts and civil society groups signing the Madrid Privacy Declaration, reaffirming a global commitment to privacy, both as a value and a human right.

• Madrid Privacy Declaration
• International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy

The CRTC has turned down CAIP's application to vary the CRTC's decision in CAIP v. Bell, finding no substantial doubt about (1) the correctness of its determinations that Bell's throttling of wholesale customer traffic does not control the content or influence the meaning or purpose of telecommunications it carries, (2) the completeness of the record used to make that decision, or (3) whether or not Commission fettered its discretion.  The Commission declined to review other elements of the application to review and vary on the grounds that Bell's traffic management practices would now be subject to the new analytic framework and tariff requirements set out in Telecom Regulatory Policy 2009-657.

• Telecom Decision CRTC 2009-677
• Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2009-657

The CRTC released its decision in the Internet Traffic Management proceeding today.  CIPPIC, who represented the Campaign for Democratic Media in the hearings leading up to this decision, called on the CRTC to put in place a framework that will ensure Canadians an open and netural Internet.  The decision (TRP CRTC 2009-657) is a step in that, but does not go as far as the FCC went a year ago, let alone as far as it is about to go tomorrow.

CIPPIC joined other privacy advocates across Canada in a joint submission promoting respect for privacy interests that will be affected by proposed changes to copyright law.

• Submission of Canada's Privacy Community
• Attachment:  Privacy and Copyright Backgrounder

CIPPIC has submitted a letter to the copyright consultations.  CIPPIC's submission cautions policy makers to avoid undermining copyright's policy objectives in revising the law, and warns of the dangers of excessive control over copyrights. 

• CIPPIC Copyright Consultation Submission
• Consumer Coalition White Paper (français)
  

The OPC has released a letter to CIPPIC outlining its final resolution with social networking site Facebook with respect to the privacy concerns CIPPIC raised in its PIPEDA complaint a year ago.  The letter supplements the original finding and lays out a process for moving forward.  The OPC has said it will continue to work with Facebook over the coming year to ensure that Facebook implements its obligations in a manner that meets the requirements of the Act.  CIPPIC has some outstanding concerns, and will continue to engage both the OPC and Facebook to ensure these are met.

The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICMLG) has launched a website, www.travelwatch.ca, through which travellers can document their encounters with transport and border officials in Canada and the U.S. If you have been unfairly targeted, send in your story!

Rogers, Bell and other ISPs are engaging in traffic shaping practices that target P2P users, ostensibly in order to keep other traffic flowing. These practices may unfairly target certain users, applications, or competitors of Rogers and Bell. The Campaign for Democratic Media is calling for action to oppose this unrestrained bandwidth throttling - join the call for net neutrality!
See www.SaveOurNet.ca for more information, links to a petition, etc.
See also:
www.neutrality.ca
www.whatisnetneutrality.ca

The Canadian government passed legislation in 2005 mandating the creation of a do-not-call registry. The registry is scheduled to take effect in mid-2008, yet many Canadians may be disappointed to learn about the exemption of a wide range of organizations (registered charities, business with prior relationships, political parties, survey companies, and newspapers). Under the law, exempted organizations are permitted to make unsolicited telephone calls despite the inclusion of the number in the do-not-call registry. However, organizations must remove numbers from their lists if specifically requested to do so. IOptOut takes advantage of this approach by allowing Canadians to create and manage a personal do-not-call list that begins where do-not-call legislation ends. Register here: http://www.ioptout.ca/ .

Ownership of communications media (internet, telephone, and broadcasting) in Canada is already highly concentrated and is at risk of becoming even more concentrated. Such concentration threatens to limit diversity of voices as well as user choice and control. For more information, and to take action, go to Canadians for Democratic Media.