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Privacy Your Rights Online

First Test of New Canadian Privacy Act 31

Posted by michael from the testing-123 dept.
dave_mcmillen writes "In Canada, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) took effect in January 2001. An upcoming case will put the act to its first test: Canadian Business Magazine is reporting that in late May, Mathew Englander will sue Telus Inc. over their right to charge him two dollars per month to have an unlisted phone number. Two other test cases are coming up later this year."
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First Test of New Canadian Privacy Act More

First Test of New Canadian Privacy Act

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  • What exactly is considered public and private information anymore?
  • It is a service that they are doing for him to keep his number unlisted by not giving it out to the phone book publishers. Companies always charge for services. Nothing new there. So why should it be any different?

    Besides, $2 CDN is really not that much. Something around $1.40 US? Even $2 US is not much.

    • So you wouldn't mind paying me two dollars a month to not spam your number all over the Internet?

      [Comedy "Profit!" option here.]
    • In Canada the phone companies *are* the phone book publishers.

      -- iCEBaLM
      • BZZZZZ Wrong. I'm sorry, you didnt get that right, and there's no parting gift for you.

        Late last year/early this year, Bell Canada sold it's Phonebook business to a third party. So in Canada, the phone comapnies are not necessarily the book publishers.
        • BZZZZZ Wrong to you. Telus is not part of Bell. They run the phone racket in Alberta and BC possibly elsewhere. Sasktel & MTS are somewhat independent public corporations, and Bell is out East. As far as I know they run their own phone book publishing, and apparantly will be publishing the phone book in Manitoba where I live this year where they are not the local phone carrier.
          • Go and re-read the original message. The original poster said that in Canada phone companies published their own phonebooks. Taking the various Ma Bell's, I was indicating that this was not true. Nowhere was Telus mentioned. BCE did indeed sell it's phonebook division late last year/early this year (unfortunately I don't have my portfolio handy so I can't give you exact dates/details).
    • Its not that it is $2, its the principle of it. People should not have to pay a single penny for their privacy. Privacy should be protected by the government (within reason).

      No information about a person should be made public without the person's explicit consent,

      Or unless there is a possibility of harming others in which case two or more authorized representatives (judges, etc) should authorize the search of information of the person.

      Or unless the party is lawfully (not commercially) authorized based
      • Privacy should be protected by the government (within reason)...No information about a person should be made public without the person's explicit consent,...

        I couldn't disagree more. The government should avoid regulating information transfer between third parties as much as possible, and I think this principle trumphs any inherent right to privacy. Of course, government uses of information have to be restricted to what is neccesary and reasonable, without being overbearing.
    • It's called "extortion".

      Differentiate between:

      1. Thanks for moving to my neighborhood. If you give me $100, I'll refrain from giving your address to my morally-impaired crack-addict friends.

      2. Thanks for subscribing to our phone service. If you give us $2, we'll refrain from giving all of your contact information to our ethically-impaired telemarketer clients. For now.

    • I've been a big follower of PIPEDA since its inception, and have used it numerous times to protect my privacy. Basically, under PIPEDA, all Canadians have a right to personal privacy. Any company who takes your information initially is accountable for what happens to that information subsequently -- even if its being handled by a different company.

      However, the phone book is potentially a loophole.

      Bell Canada asserts that if you choose to list your name and number in the phonebook, you have chosen to a

    • Besides, $2 CDN is really not that much.

      The article doesn't state whether that's $2 per month or $2 per year. (The phone book is usually published anually.) $2 per year is nothing worth worrying about, but $2 a month seems unreasonable.

    • Dude, the entire legal system of a province (Manitoba I think) was once brought down by someone fighting a parking ticket. Canadians love to fight strange things in court. If you're wondering, it was because all the laws were written in English only and since Canada had gone bilingual years before, they were all in breach of the law. Some guy got a parking ticket written only in English and he took it all the way to the Supreme Court and ended up forcing the province to completely rebuild their legal sys
    • No. The service they are performing is listing his number. This is the actual work being performed.

      They are charging $2 to NOT perform that service. It is a clasic protection racket. It is definitely unethical and it would be nice if it is also illegal.
    • Why, of course 2$ is not much.

      You know, a lot of the baby bells add something like 80c - 2$ for touch tone service to your phone bill.

      Let's assume that there are 200m land lines and each and every one is charged with an avearge of just $1 for touch tone service. Well, that's a handy 2.4 billion $ a year as a neat additional profit in exchange for nothing at all.

      There's no need to thank me.

      • Some of your statistics are a little off however. The total population of canada is estimated to be roughly 31 million. Not 200 million. In addition to that, Telus only serves British Columbia(4m), Alberta(3m), and Ontario(11.7m). A total of 18.7 million people in those provinces combined. And lets not forget that not every one of those people has a phone line. Sure, some have several (work, cell...) but there are others who have none or have one shared amongst several people (ie. a family).
  • I get phone, long distance, and ADSL service from Telus. They have the shitiest, most cryptic bills in the world. You have to wait forever to talk to someone about repairs or your bill. They fucked up my ADSL service twice. The guy that came in to install it short circuited the lines and I did not have phone service for a week. My parents had ADSL installed. The repair guy came in Friday. Decided not to finish up and left the phone unuseable until Monday.

    They subscribed me to extra services without

    • Telephone service is considered a necessary service, and is regulated by the CRTC. If you ever have a problem, call the CRTC and get them to speak to Telus on your behalf. This should solve any problems you have.

      As for any of the other problems you mention, I've had nothing but good experiences with Telus. I live in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and get cell service with them, about which I have no complaints, but when we lived in Abbotsford and Mission, (an hour west of Vancouver, for anyone not from the ar

    • Re:Telus is a bunch of bastards - AMEN! (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Telus has to be the worst "provider" I've ever had the displeasure of using.

      Their DSL is a joke.

      They advertise "static" IP addresses (for a fee) - but say you have to use DHCP to get it (I guess that they don't know that the 'D' in DHCP stands for dynamic)

      In October 2001, their DHCP servers for the province of Alberta were down for two weeks.

      A customer of mine has a 4-computer network, linked by a Dlink DSL firewall - he was having DSL problems, and the "support" people at Telus told him that they don't

  • Down with Telus (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Curtman ( 556920 )
    From Sept 2001, until this January, I was living in Alberta which has Telus for a phone company. During that time I experienced such things as a $65 "Miscellaneous Service Charge" about which I contacted them many many times to find out how exactly I came to incur this fee. They were never able to give me any reason for it being there, and suggested I pay it to settle my account, and I could apply to have it refunded. The charge was never removed, and I never did pay it. I never did get my $100 deposit
    • That's quite disappointing to hear. I'm in BC, and they pretty much have a monopoly here too. I haven't had any complaints about their service (local, long distance, and ADSL) so far, except that the entire concept of "long distance" is a bunch of crap nowadays.
    • you lucky person
      i was charged £80 for a twenty minute phone call to the british telecom help desk because they screwed up my bills
      oh and i discovered last month that they have been charging me £15 a month for 7 months for a service which BT cancelled because i had to confirm the cancellation with them even though they did not tell me that it was cancelled
      I love Canada

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