Law in the Information Society

On the privacy front, one of the issues that may be of interest are the circumstances under which a business hands over to governments transactional data it has collected in the course of doing business. In this story by Declan McCullogh, The Massachusetts Internet tax mystery | CNET News.com he argues that it is inappropriate for a business to hand over information unless the government has a warrant or a subpoena. While governments may have an interest in law enforcement and tax collection, they should not be able to merely "request" that personal information held by businesses be handed over in the absence of some more rigorous form of control of government action.

It is interesting to note the changes made to PIPEDA after 9-11. A provision was added to section 7 of the statute, stating

"an organization may disclose personal information without the knowledge or consent of the individual only if the disclosure is... made to a government institution or part of a government institution that has made a request for the information, identified its lawful authority to obtain the information and indicated that ... the disclosure is requested for the purposes of ... carrying out an investigation relating to the enforcement of any [law of Canada, a province or a foreign jurisdiction].

Hence, a business can hand over information merely at the request of government, without the government having to obtain a warrant or any other formal authorization. I would call this rather limited protection for privacy rights, wouldn't you?