Protecting privacy on the Canadian information highway: Policy developments and regulatory options

The debate about the future of the Canadian information highway has revealed that the rules for the protection of personal information are incomplete and incoherent. The federal government has now recognized that this regulatory patchwork will fail to allay the growing concerns of the general public, will not satisfy emerging international standards, and will create enormous costs for businesses that need to transfer personal data from one jurisdiction to another. Slowly beginning to take shape is a Canadian privacy protection policy that emphasizes the use of all instruments within the ''toolkit'' of privacy protection. It recognizes that voluntary action from the bottom up is just as necessary as regulatory action from the top down. It embraces innovations in new privacy-enhancing technologies and instruments from the world of standards-setting and certification. Fundamentally however, the government has recognized that only a comprehensive legislative framework (based on the recently adopted Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information negotiated through the Canadian Standards Association) will provide the necessary protections in the networked and distributed computer environment of the information highway.