The Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association (CLHIA) is encouraging the Ontario government to refrain from rushing the development of privacy legislation in the province.
“We understand that the Ontario government intends to move quickly on this issue and is aiming to draft and implement legislation in a very short period of time. We believe that having a short consultation period in the middle of the summer on something so significant and important to the people of Ontario could result in insufficient feedback. We would caution the government on moving ahead too quickly,” the CLHIA writes in its comments to the Ontario Ministry of Government and Consumer Services on its white paper entitled Modernizing Privacy in Ontario: Empowering Ontarians and Enabling the Digital Economy.
“We believe a new privacy regulatory framework in Ontario is not needed and instead, it is essential to ensure that modernization is coordinated with the federal government’s framework for privacy. Our industry generally supports the direction established by the federal government in its recently tabled legislation (Bill C-11) to update the privacy framework,” they add. “It strikes a balance between an individual’s right to control how their personal information is used and the reality that organizations often require personal information in order to provide new and innovative services to Canadians.”
They add that having separate and potentially incompatible rules in Ontario will hinder an insurance company’s ability to operate in the province. “Should the Ontario government decide to move ahead with its own legislation in this area, we would strongly encourage the province to focus on areas that are not currently captured by the federal legislation,” they write, pointing out that the federal legislation is currently limited to commercial activities. “Therefore, organizations such as charities, unions, associations and other non-profits would not be covered. We support the province’s approach to close the gap by creating privacy legislation in the province that focuses on oversight of these organizations to ensure Ontarians’ personal information is adequately covered.”
Coherent regulation, they add, must ensure businesses are able to innovate while also giving citizens a clear understanding of how their information is used.
“We do not believe additional provincial legislation is required but rather that Ontario, and all provinces, should work with the federal government to continue to amend its federal legislation in a manner that would take into consideration provincial concerns,” they conclude. “Should the province of Ontario see a need to otherwise protect its constituents, we suggest that they province focus on those areas not captured by federal legislation.”
