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Privacy Commissioner welcomes International Privacy Awareness Week

Ottawa, August 28, 2007 – Privacy is Your Business is the theme of International Privacy Awareness Week, which runs from August 26 to September 1, 2007.

A recent survey by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner revealed that a majority of Canadian businesses (55 per cent) believe their customers are more concerned about privacy related issues today than in the past. In fact, many businesses (86 per cent) recognize that taking privacy seriously is just good business.

In recent weeks, we have released several tools designed to help employees, managers and owners understand their roles and responsibilities under Canada's privacy laws. These include new guidelines for the disclosure of privacy breaches and an e-learning module for retailers. We are working on more tools for businesses, which we expect to release in the coming months.

As part of our public education mandate, we are proud to join our international colleagues in promoting awareness of the privacy rights of individuals and the standards expected of businesses and governments.

International Privacy Awareness Week is an initiative of some of the members of the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities, including officials from across Australia, as well as New Zealand, Hong Kong and South Korea. More information about their activities, as well as promotional materials, can be found at the International Privacy Awareness Week website (http://www.privacyawarenessweek.org/paw/).

Other privacy authorities, including the OPC, and the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia, are also members of APPA.
 
In Canada, the Privacy Commissioner works with colleagues in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec to promote privacy rights in the private sector and with colleagues across Canada to promote privacy rights in the public sector. Under the auspices of the APEC Data Privacy Sub-Group, we are also working with privacy authorities in Asia to develop mechanisms for the international implementation of the APEC Privacy Framework.
 
The international privacy community will be coming together next month, in Montreal, at the 29th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners. Experts from the public and private sectors, academia and the non-for-profit community will examine difficult issues such as data mining, authentication and identity management in our volatile, globalized and interconnected world.