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First Test of New Canadian Privacy Act
dave_mcmillen writes "In Canada, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) took effect in January 2001. An upcoming case will put the act to its first test: Canadian Business Magazine is
reporting that in late May, Mathew Englander will sue Telus Inc. over their right to charge him two dollars per month to have an unlisted phone number. Two other test cases are coming up later this year."
What exactly is considered public and private information anymore?
"The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it." -- Ayn Rand
Besides, $2 CDN is really not that much. Something around $1.40 US? Even $2 US is not much.
Replied to wrong story! Mod me down as offtopic....
www.eFax.com are spammers
I have an opinion, but since I'm a Canadian, you need to fill out a bunch of forms first and then I need to fill out a bunch of forms giving you permission to hear my opinion before I can tell you what I think of this story.
(My opinions are private, you know)
Thomas
Its not that it is $2, its the principle of it. People should not have to pay a single penny for their privacy. Privacy should be protected by the government (within reason).
:-)
No information about a person should be made public without the person's explicit consent,
Or unless there is a possibility of harming others in which case two or more authorized representatives (judges, etc) should authorize the search of information of the person.
Or unless the party is lawfully (not commercially) authorized based on a priviledge that the person has. e.g. if you were caught for careless driving, then the officer has the right to see your record (provided you give him your card) and inform the traffic authority of your offence.
Any entity whether commercial or government should provide a lawful explanation to an authorized party what information they require or need to publish about people before they actually do so.
Of course that's if we have an ideal world where politicians are not subsidized by commercial entities.
Vote Trajano!
Archie - CIO-for-hire
I've been a big follower of PIPEDA since its inception, and have used it numerous times to protect my privacy. Basically, under PIPEDA, all Canadians have a right to personal privacy. Any company who takes your information initially is accountable for what happens to that information subsequently -- even if its being handled by a different company.
However, the phone book is potentially a loophole.
Bell Canada asserts that if you choose to list your name and number in the phonebook, you have chosen to allow your name and address to be provided (read: sold) to other any company who wishes to call you up and try to sell you things -- after all, anyone could look up your number in the phyisical paper phone book. And because anyone could look up your number in the paper phone book, there's no problem if Bell -- working through subsidiary and direct marketing companies -- provides the phone book database to companies who wish to call you up and sell you things.
If you do not wish your number to be sold, you have to pay for your number to be unlisted -- you can't simply opt-out of having your number and address sold/shared otherwise. The fact that you have to pay for your right to privacy (no matter how small the amount) arguably violates PIPEDA -- at least, it violates the spirit of the law.
As well, if you must pay for your right to privacy, this could potentially set a precedent for other organizations. Moreover, there's no guarantee that the charge will remain $2.
I've spent a long time on the phone with Bell, its subsidiaries, and direct marketing companies tracing out how my phone number became shared. I've also discovered (by questioning the telemarketers -- which is my right under PIPEDA) that EVERY SINGLE telemarketer to call me has purchased my number from the phone book company.
I can spell. I just can't type.
They subscribed me to extra services without my consent. And you don't get the discounted rate for ADSL unless you purchase long distance and an extra bundle from them.
I plan to switch to Sprint eventually. Whenever I can get a good long distance deal. And I'll switch to Shaw eventually as well for broadband.
Unfortunately, Telus is the only way to go if you are going to get a cell phone. They have the best network, phones, and prices here in Vancouver. But I bet their service is horrible too.
From Sept 2001, until this January, I was living in Alberta which has Telus for a phone company. During that time I experienced such things as a $65 "Miscellaneous Service Charge" about which I contacted them many many times to find out how exactly I came to incur this fee. They were never able to give me any reason for it being there, and suggested I pay it to settle my account, and I could apply to have it refunded. The charge was never removed, and I never did pay it. I never did get my $100 deposit back that I had to put down in order to make long distance calls either. In the last month that I lived in Calgary, I sent them a bill for my time that I had invested in trying to find the source of this charge. That invoice was for $65, which I thought was reasonable because it took away from time that I could be pursuing business intrests. I never recieved even a phone call to say they wouldn't pay it.
For a brief time I was a subscriber of their ADSL service as well. In all the places I've lived, and all the providers I have dealt with they were by far the worst when it came to service, both technical and operational.
I'm not sure how it works south of the border, but in Alberta they have a complete monopoly over local phone service. If I were ever to live there again, I would be using a cell phone from someone else just to avoid their beurocracy. But I'm back in Manitoba now, and MTS (which also has a local service monopoly) has been very good to me so far.
I would like very much to see them have a ruling against them even if it has nothing to do with my situation.
Telus has to be the worst "provider" I've ever had the displeasure of using.
Their DSL is a joke.
They advertise "static" IP addresses (for a fee) - but say you have to use DHCP to get it (I guess that they don't know that the 'D' in DHCP stands for dynamic)
In October 2001, their DHCP servers for the province of Alberta were down for two weeks.
A customer of mine has a 4-computer network, linked by a Dlink DSL firewall - he was having DSL problems, and the "support" people at Telus told him that they don't support networks, and that he shouldn't have a firewall - AT ALL. (Yeah, like customers should just trust Telus to protect them.)
Another customer of mine (a school) used to use Shaw Cable for their internet connection - they had 3 years of flawless service.. the school board decides that they should be with Telus, and they all of a sudden need to "release and renew" the IP address on their proxy every two or three days.. Telus blames the proxy, saying it couldn't possibly be their fault.. after three months, they switch back to Shaw, and (lo and behold) the problem goes away.
You know, a lot of the baby bells add something like 80c - 2$ for touch tone service to your phone bill.
Let's assume that there are 200m land lines and each and every one is charged with an avearge of just $1 for touch tone service. Well, that's a handy 2.4 billion $ a year as a neat additional profit in exchange for nothing at all.
There's no need to thank me.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
If you hate telus, or would like to learn why you *should* hate telus, check out this link: http://www.hackcanada.com/telco/index.html