OPC Releases Reframed Consultation Document on Transfers for Processing
On June 11, 2019, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (the “OPC”) announced that it has reframed its consultation on transfers for processing, including transborder data flows.
On April 9, 2019, the OPC released its Report of Findings on the Equifax investigation, where it determined, on the facts of the case, that consent was required under the current law for the transfer of personal information from Equifax Canada for processing by its US affiliate, Equifax Inc. Because this interpretation was a departure from the OPCs previous position on transfers for processing, the OPC also released the original consultation document on April 9, 2019, with a supplementary discussion document that followed on April 23, 2019.
Shortly after the federal government’s announcement of the Digital Charter on May 21, 2019, which suggests that transborder data flows may be dealt with in future federal privacy legislation, Commissioner Therrien announced the OPC had temporarily suspended its Consultation on Transborder Dataflows.
The OPC consultation has now resumed and the reframed consultation document has consolidated the original consultation documents and questions in to a new, standalone discussion document. The OPC is inviting stakeholder views on both how the current law should be interpreted and on how a future law should provide effective privacy protection in the context of transfers for processing. The questions previously posed with respect to the current law remain the same in the reframed document and the OPC has added three additional “future law” questions for stakeholder input.
The deadline for submissions on the Consultation on Transfers for Processing – Reframed Discussion Document is August 6, 2019.