Canada’s New Data Protection Bill: Is It Adequate?
- December 31, 2020
- Heather Ferg
On November 17, 2020, the Canadian federal government tabled Bill C-11 in the House of Commons. If passed, the Digital Charter Implementation Act will enact two new pieces of legislation: the Consumer Privacy Protection Act and the Data Protection Tribunal Act. Together,…
Border Searches Ruled Unconstitutional
- November 15, 2020
- Heather Ferg
Canadian constitutional law recognizes that international travellers have a reduced expectation of privacy when crossing the border. Border officers have extraordinary powers to question, detain, search and seize that are grounded in the right of Canada to protect its national…
Facial Recognition: The People Push Back
- October 15, 2020
- Heather Ferg
Fully-automated identification technology can undermine personal privacy and public anonymity in an instant. Combined with other tools of mass surveillance, it bridges the gap between the physical and digital worlds. Despite serious privacy and human rights concerns, the use of…
Fair, Just and Decent Policing: Does ‘Reasonable Suspicion’ Deliver?
- July 30, 2020
- Heather Ferg
Despite recent claims to the contrary, racial profiling and the over-policing of racalized and low income communities are long-standing features of the Canadian justice system. In law, the “reasonable suspicion” standard governs many initial contacts with the police. In R…
Cold Call Drug Buys and the Law of Entrapment
- June 30, 2020
- Heather Ferg
Random virtue testing and police-manufactured crime sow deep seeds of distrust between the citizen and the state. The doctrine of entrapment defines the constitutional boundaries of lawful police conduct in providing opportunities for unwitting targets to commit crimes. In modern…