Slashdot Mirror
A Background of a 'Background Checker'
pamri writes "The Times of India profiles Jay Patel, of Abika, a firm that specializes in background checks, personality profiles, satellite or aerial Photos of any location besides other services in the US. It is now venturing into other countries including Canada and India.
Abika is already facing protests from Canadian Privacy groups for breaching the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act"
I am not sure I understand what you are saying; the Canadian Privacy Act forces ALL corporate entities to destroy any personal data, regardless of where your main office is. If they intend to merely profile Canadians for their business venture, then they would be liable to any laws that are imposed on people conducting business in Canada that are from outside the country.
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Are you a a lawyer? I'm not. But I am a Canadian law student. So I probably know more about the law, particularly Canadian law, than 99% of the posters on this board. Which isn't saying much, I admit.
That said, with respect, you're very wrong.
As a matter of law, you can always bring a claim against a foreign defendant in your own jurisdiction. The threshold issue will be whether your jurisdiction is the appropriate venue to pursue the claim.
Incidentally, I don't think the problem is so much PIPEDA as defamation. If someone publishes inaccurate and defamatory information about me, I can sue their pants off, whether I'm in Canada or the US. But I'd probably want to do it in Canada, since US libel laws are pretty defendant-friendly.
If you succeed, however, you'd have to enforce the judgment in the defendant's jurisdiction, which could be problematic.
Incidentally, although the Times of India is profiling this fellow, the company is based in Wyoming (or so claims their WHOIS record). One would go after the corporate person, I would think, so at the very least, people can sue the corp under Wyoming/US law.
If, for any reason, you think I'm full of it, then note that Americans regularly sue Canadians in American courts. Right now there's a great case about a junkyard owner in Virginia suing CIBC (one of Canada's largest banks) in negligence for mistakenly sending faxes containing the bank's customers' information to his business.
However, IANAL. None of the foregoing is legal advice.