research-article

Is workplace surveillance legal in Canada?

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PST '06: Proceedings of the 2006 International Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust: Bridge the Gap Between PST Technologies and Business Services

October 2006

Article No.: 30, Pages 1 - 7

https://doi.org/10.1145/1501434.1501471

Published: 30 October 2006 Publication History

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Abstract

This paper reports on the results of a research project into employer practices with respect to workplace privacy, funded by the Federal Privacy Commissioner of Canada's Contributions Program. The paper discusses the variety of privacy invasive technologies used by Canadian Employers in order to survey and monitor their workers. It then discusses the legal basis for such workplace surveillance as perceived by the employers, and concludes with an assessment whether, and under what circumstances, such surveillance is lawful in Canada.

References

[1]

A. Levin, M. Foster, M. J. Nicholson & T. Hernandez, Under the Radar: The Employer Perspective on Workplace Privacy, http://www.ryerson.ca/faculties/business/index.html

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[2]

The Constitution of Canada, §§ 91--92.

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[3]

PIPEDA, § 4 (1) (b).

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[4]

PIPEDA, § 2 (1).

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[5]

Quebec Civil Code, § 2087.

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[6]

PIPA §§ 15, 18, 21. (Alberta); PIPA §§ 13, 16, 19 (BC).

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[7]

AMA 2005 Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance Survey, http://www.amanet.org/press/amanews/ems05.htm.

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[8]

von Hannover v. Germany ECHR 59320/00.

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[9]

Arret 4164, Cour de Cassation -- Chambre Sociale (2001).

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[10]

Katz v. United States 389 US 347 (1967).

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[11]

Smyth v. Pillsbury 924 F. Supp. 97 (E.D. Pa. 1996).

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[12]

D. Loukidelis, "Arbitrators & Privacy Commissioners---Why They Should Listen to Each Other", Insight Conference "Privacy Laws & Effective Workplace Investigations", Calgary, May 4--5, 2004, pp. 6--7.

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Index Terms

Is workplace surveillance legal in Canada?
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Computing / technology policy
    1. Government technology policy
      1. Governmental regulations

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Is workplace surveillance legal in Canada?

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Published In

PST '06: Proceedings of the 2006 International Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust: Bridge the Gap Between PST Technologies and Business Services

October 2006

389 pages

ISBN:1595936041

DOI:10.1145/1501434

General Chair:
Greg Sprague
National Research Council, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
,
Program Chairs:
Bernadette Schell
UOIT, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
,
Wilfred Fong
UOIT, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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SIGSAC: ACM Special Interest Group on Security, Audit, and Control

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 30 October 2006

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PST06

PST06: International Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust

October 30 - November 1, 2006

Ontario, Markham, Canada

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