On November 15, 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") released a decision in Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner) v. United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 401, 2013 SCC 62 (the "UFCW Decision") declaring Alberta's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) invalid on the basis that it infringes the right to freedom of expression enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (you can refer to our previous blog entry on the topic here. Since the decision was released, there has been much public speculation regarding how broad the resulting changes to PIPA will be. On January 14, 2014, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta released an open letter to the Alberta government outlining her recommendations to resolve the issue of invalidity while still maintaining appropriate protection of Albertan's personal information under PIPA (the full letter can be found here.
While the letter outlines several possible solutions, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta suggests that the change that would best address the concerns of the SCC would be to add provisions to the current version of PIPA that authorize "... the collection, use or disclosure of personal information by unions for expressive purposes without consent, in the context of picketing during a lawful strike." She further explains that this change will ensure that unions remain subject to PIPA and that personal information remains protected, while still allowing unions the required freedom of expression.
Furthermore, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta addresses speculation that the UFCW Decision may be used to address amendments to PIPA on unrelated issues and urges the Alberta government to only consider the changes that will make PIPA compliant with the UFCW Decision at this time. She suggests that a comprehensive review of PIPA may take longer to complete than the time frame granted by the SCC and in any case, PIPA currently provides that a review of PIPA will begin by July 1, 2015.
The Alberta government has until November 15, 2014 to make the required changes to PIPA, and these most recent suggestions made by the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta suggest that any changes made may relate only to the narrow accommodations required by the UFCW Decision.
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