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ARTICLE · 25 JUNE 2021

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Ontario Moves Forward With Privacy Legislation Initiative

Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
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Ontario has taken a significant step towards implementing private sector privacy legislation in the province.

CanadaPrivacy
Éloïse Gratton
Éloïse Gratton
Daniel J. Michaluk
Daniel J. Michaluk
Elisa Henry
Elisa Henry
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Ontario has taken a significant step towards implementing private sector privacy legislation in the province.

On June 17, it issued a white paper entitled Modernizing Privacy in Ontario that sets out a model for a new statute. The province aims to implement stronger protections than introduced by the federal government in its privacy reform bill, Bill C-11. If the province's proposed model becomes law, it will bring in a strict new compliance and enforcement regime and entirely new employment privacy regulation. It will also increase the fragmentation of the Canadian private sector privacy law regime.

The context for reform

Federal law currently governs commercial privacy in Ontario. The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) has imposed a broad set of privacy-related requirements that are based on fair information practice principles - a set of fundamental principles for protecting privacy that have become the basis of global

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