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ARTICLE · 11 APRIL 2014

Digital Privacy Act Everything Old Is New Again

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On April 8, 2014, the Harper government introduced Bill S-4 in the Senate.

CanadaPrivacy
Bernice Karn
Bernice Karn
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On April 8, 2014, the Harper government introduced Bill S-4 in the Senate. The new Bill, known as the "Digital Privacy Act" is touted as providing new protections for Canadians when they search the web and shop online. However, for privacy observers, the Digital Privacy Act largely represents a retabling of two previous Bills introduced in the House of Commons to amend the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act ("PIPEDA"), the most recent of which was Bill C-12, introduced in 2011, which died when Parliament was prorogued in 2013.

The Digital Privacy Act contains a number of administrative amendments and, of the recycled amendments to PIPEDA, the following are noteworthy:

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