Stop looking at me - Canadian Privacy Commission waggles finger at Google
In a letter sent to Google last month, Canadian Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddardt writes, “Our Office considers images of individuals that are sufficiently clear to allow an individual to be identified to be personal information within the meaning of PIPEDA.”
That, to me, seems just plain nuts. Does this mean every snapshot on Facebook and Flickr need to be pulled? There’s an interview with Armin Shimerman that the Space network dredges up from time to time as between show filler, and if you look behind Armin, I can be seen walking in the background. Can I demand they stop running the piece as they never had my permission to film me? What about sporting events? When a pop-fly lands in the stands, do they need to ask permission before flashing the crowd up onto the Jumbotron? Or before they televise the event?
Here’s a question. If, as Ms. Stoddardt asserts, your visage is a personal record protected by privacy legislation and not to be collected without consent, should we all be issued blindfolds?
Something seems off about this. I’m not a lawyer, but I would think that the exception under item 7(d) ‘the information is publicly available’ would apply. Can’t get much more public than the sidewalks of a major city.
What’s more, if you read carefully, Stoddardt doesn’t come right out and state, ‘this won’t fly in Canada.‘ Instead, she ends with a rather wishy-washy ‘I am concerned that, if the Street View application were deployed in Canada it might not comply with our federal privacy legislation.‘
‘Concerned’? ‘Might not’? Good gravy - if anyone ought to know if it complies with our legislation or not, you would think it would be the Privacy Commissioner. So what’s the real story here? Is this a quick way to get some attention for the Privacy Commission? Is this an attempt to shake down Google - ‘gee, we’d like to let you up here. Maybe if you acquiesce to some of our demands’? (Update: Colin McKay, has commented, explaining the reason for the conditional is that the resolution quality varies city to city in the US, and they do not yet know what the images for Canadian cities are like.)
I’ll be following this one with interest.
September 15th, 2007 at 5:50 am
Hi. The service hasn’t been rolled out in Canada, so there are no examples of what the images would look like here.
In fact, it appears that the resolution of images available on Street View in the United States differs between cities and the relevant image suppliers.
That’s why the Commissioner’s letter was in the conditional: we have simply written to the companies to ask what steps they will take to safeguard privacy rights in Canada.
Colin McKay
Director of Communications
Office of the Privacy Commissioner
September 15th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Colin,
Thanks for taking the time to address my concerns - and in the wee small hours of a Saturday morning, no less. Very good to know that our public offices are not only paying attention but are willing to join the conversation. I’ve updated the post accordingly.