Ontario has a Privacy Commissioner, just like the Feds!

It is great to see that privacy in Ontario is given some consideration. Recently, our Privacy Commissioner, Ann Cavoukian, managed to grab some headlines discussing the significant details power suppliers can mine from your usage data.

Ms Cavoukian raised concerns regarding the lack of privacy protection in the Smart Grid legislation:

power suppliers will be able see what time you cook, when you shower or go to sleep, even if your house has an alarm system. That, she says, creates both privacy and security issues.

So far, the federal privacy commissioner has gotten most of the press attention. A summary Google search reveals that this provincial counterpart investigated the issue of information leakage out of abandoned medical records, admonished Facebook for not being compliant with local privacy laws and released its annual report within the span of a few months.

Keep up the good work, Ms Cavoukian!

Sources / More info: cbc-smart-grid, annual-report, ipc-on, on-fb, abandoned-records-md, wiki-ipc, can-priv-law-ann, priv-int-photo-radar-96

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