Digital Privacy Act Streamlines M&A Procedures

On June 18^th the Digital Privacy Act (Bill S-4) received Royal Assent. This new law provides long overdue amendments to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). The Digital Privacy Act amends a wide range of PIPEDA provisions from consent to the expansion of the Commissioner's powers. Easily overlooked in the sweeping amendments are important changes to the consent rules surrounding prospective business transactions. In short, the new rules allow companies to share personal information in prospective business transactions without first obtaining the consent of the persons whom the information is about.

In PIPEDA's pre-amendment form, personal information could only be used for the purpose which it was collected for. If companies wanted to use Personal Information for any other purposes, they had to get the consent of the individual to whom the information was about. While there were limited exceptions to this general consent rule,