Biometric Information And Privacy Considerations: Guidance For Canadian Businesses

Biometric identification and related privacy concerns were first discussed by Aird & Berlis in the World Data Protection Report¹ in 2009. Since then, biometric technologies and their uses have advanced exponentially, enabling not only identity verification (one-to-one comparison) and recognition (one-to-many) but also health and behavioural analysis through app interactions, among others.

Despite the passage of time and these escalating developments, a core challenge persists: efforts to update Canadian privacy legislation have been repeatedly sidelined (with few exceptions), leaving businesses and governments to grapple with laws and principles that were not drafted with biometric and other new technologies in mind. Thus, regulators are left to express their views on the interpretation of existing laws through non-binding guidance documents.