Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Daniel Therrien, also said that while his office met six times over the past year with Statscan for discussions that included the agency’s general plans to obtain “administrative data” from private companies, the specific plan to compel banks to hand over the records of 500,000 Canadian households was not raised with him.
Former Ontario privacy commissioner Ann Cavoukian told senators that she is strongly opposed to Statscan’s plan. She said the technology exists for banks to remove the names of individuals before transferring the data and that option should be looked at more closely.
The hearings highlighted a key point of tension faced by the banks. As private-sector companies, they are governed by the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, a federal law approved in 2000 that requires private companies to obtain an individual’s consent when they collect, use or disclose that individual’s personal information.
However, Statistics Canada appears to be of the view that its powers in the Statistics Act – which dates to 1985 – trump the privacy laws governing the private sector.
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