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ARTICLE · 21 JULY 2025

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Breaking Boundaries: Alberta Court Declares Private Sector Privacy Law Unconstitutional In Clearview AI Web-Scraping Case

WeirFoulds LLP
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A recent decision of the Court of King's Bench of Alberta has found that certain provisions of Alberta's Personal Information Protection Act, SA 2003, c P-6.5 ("PIPA")...

CanadaPrivacy
Olalekan Akinremi
Olalekan Akinremi
Sharan Johal
Sharan Johal
Felice Chun
Felice Chun
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Introduction

A recent decision of the Court of King's Bench of Alberta has found that certain provisions of Alberta's Personal Information Protection Act, SA 2003, c P-6.5 ("PIPA")1 and the corresponding Personal Information Protection Act Regulation, Alta Reg 366/2003 (the "PIPA Regulation")2 are unconstitutional on the basis that they infringe the right to freedom of expression as protected by section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the "Charter").3 This ruling may have a substantial impact on web-scraping practices generally, and signals a need to modernize Alberta's private sector privacy legislation.

Background

In Clearview AI Inc v Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner), 2025 ABKB 287, (the "2025 Clearview PIPA Decision"),4 Clearview AI Inc. ("Clearview"):

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