Peter Nowak of CBC News reports:
Canada’s privacy commissioner, fresh off forcing Facebook to change how it handles users’ data, is ordering Bell Canada to change how it informs internet customers of its network-management practices.
In a report dated Aug. 13 and made public on Friday, assistant privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denham told the company it must change its service agreements and the Frequently Asked Questions section of its website to notify customers that it collects and retains their personal information through use of its deep-packet inspection technology.
[…]
The report was in response to a complaint by the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, based at the University of Ottawa. The privacy commissioner rejected CIPPIC’s two other complaints about Bell’s DPI, that the company was collecting personal information about customers without their consent and that it is gathering more information than needed to manage its network.
Denham said the service agreements customers sign constitute their consent. She also said she had not found any evidence that Bell was using DPI to look at users’ internet traffic for purposes such as advertising or boosting its own services.
“I am unconvinced that, at date of issue of this report, Bell is collecting or using any personal information of individuals other than the IP addresses and subscriber IDs of Sympatico customers when it uses its DPI technology for the purpose of network traffic management,” she wrote.
Read more on CBC.ca
I wonder if all American privacy bloggers like me have Privacy Commissioner Envy. Maybe it should be a new diagnosis: “A disorder characterized by intense and persisting desire for a privacy commissioner to protect the citizens’ privacy.”