In November 2020, the Canadian government introduced the Digital Charter Implementation Act which, if passed, will enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA) and the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act, resulting in significant changes to Canada’s federal privacy regime for private sector businesses.

“I would say it’s the most important privacy reform in 20 years,” said Chantal Bernier, lead of Dentons’ Canadian Privacy and Cybersecurity group and interim privacy commissioner of Canada from 2013 to 2014.

Kirsten Thompson, partner and lead of Dentons’ Transformative Technologies and Data Strategy group in Canada, said that whatever the final reforms look like, they need to be in the service of driving business and facilitating innovation, and avoid being a “knee-jerk reaction based on technophobia.”

“What I hear in my practice constantly and what we’ve experienced over the last few years of GDPR is companies saddled with compliance burdens that really dampen business and innovation. The trick is going to be in getting that balance right.”

Read the full piece in Canadian Lawyer here.

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