Regulation (December 01, 2009)

HOPE FADING THAT FEDERAL PRIVACY LEGISLATION WILL BECOME MORE INVESTIGATION-FRIENDLY

For insurance defence counsel, hope is receding that federal privacy legislation related to insurance investigations and surveillance will be aligned in the future with the comparatively more straightforward provincial privacy legislation found in B.C. and Alberta.

John Beardwood, partner in Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP’s Toronto office, made the observation in an address to Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC)’s Ninth Annual Regulatory Affairs Symposium, held in Toronto on Oct. 30.

Beardwood noted privacy legislation in B.C. and Alberta has a fairly simple set of exemptions. In B.C. and Alberta, for example, information obtained for the purposes of a reasonable investigation are exempt from the privacy legislation’s requirement that a person consents to the collection of his or her information.

Lawyers have lobbied to amend the federal privacy legislation to include these same exemptions, but the last federal election brought the possibility to a halt, Beardwood said. It’s not clear when or if those amendments will actually take place.