Canadian Court Rulings

Personal Information Protection

Introduction

This section contains summaries of Canadian court decisions which refer to Canadian statutes concerning the protection of personal information in the private sector. [The only Canadian jurisdiction not covered is Quebec, which will be the subject of a separate McConchie Law Corporation webpage now under construction.]

This list is not necessarily exhaustive: (a) court rulings are not always reduced to writing; and (b) the law reports and electronic databases do not contain all written court rulings. Further, the list is only updated periodically. Any decision listed on this page should be updated by appropriate legal research before any reliance is placed on that decision. This is necessary to determine whether a decision has been over-ruled, criticized or distinguished on its facts by a subsequent court decision.

The Canadian decisions will be listed and summarized under the following topic headings:

  1. Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, S.C. 2000, c. 5 as amended (“PIPEDA”) [a federal statute]
  2. Personal Information Protection Act, SBC 2003, c. 63 (“BC PIPA”) [a British Columbia statute]
  3. Personal Information Protection Act, SA 2003, c. P-6.5 (“ALTA PIPA”) [an Alberta statute]

Under each topic heading, the Canadian decisions will be listed in chronological order.

Wherever possible, a hypertext link is provided to the full text of a Canadian decision. A link will in most cases lead to a free, publicly-accessible website.