As we said last year on Good Friday, there are five nationwide holidays in this country: Canada Day (July 1), Labour Day (1st Monday in September), Christmas Day (December 25), New Year’s Day (January 1)—and Good Friday, today (which is two days prior to Easter, which in turn falls, roughly speaking, on the first Sunday after the first full moon, after the vernal equinox).

There will likely be no new entries on Slaw today.

See you all on Monday—which is not a statutory holiday in any province or territory and not a holiday within the Canada Labour Code . . . . . [more]

The Law Commissions of Scotland, England and Wales have proposed a clarification of British law about unfair terms in consumer contracts, to ensure that that law applies to end-user licence agreements for software and online services (EULAs).

Canadian jurisdictions do not (so far as I know) have legislation with ‘unfair terms’ in the name, while the UK has implemented the EU Directive on Unfair Terms. (French courts held a decade ago that online contracts, notably the AOL (2004) and Tiscali (2005) subscriber agreements, were subject to the comparable French law – and invalidated a large proportion of the . . . [more]

The European Union is adopting regulations on alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and online dispute resolution (ODR), according to a press release and associated documents, including a draft ODR regulation. This is aimed at consumer e-commerce in particular.

I have not yet found in the documents answers to some questions that occur to me off the cuff. (The answers may be in there somewhere – feel free to provide via comments.)

• Who pays? It appears to be taxpayer-funded, rather than relying on user fees. There is mention of a cost of 4.6 million Euros (annually?).
• What law applies? This list

. . . [more]

We’re proud to announce that Sandra Petersson is joining Slaw as a regular blogger.

Sandra is research manager at the Alberta Law Reform Institute, a writer and a former Supreme Court of Canada clerk. She travelled to New Zealand as a Commonwealth Scholar to earn a Masters Degree in legislative drafting and gender equality, and stayed on in New Zealand as a senior lecturer in law at Victoria University of Wellington, teaching courses in legal theory, legislation and torts.

Please welcome Sandra to Slaw. . . . [more]

The Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) regulates the sale of alcohol products in Ontario. Fans of wine not available on the shelves of the LCBO’s outlets may form wine clubs that order particular wines through the LCBO. Until recently, the LCBO collected the names and addresses of all the members of the clubs placing these orders.

Acting on a complaint by a manager/member of such a club, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario recently ordered that the LCBO stop collecting this personal information. In response, the LCBO stopped filling orders from the wine clubs.

According to the CBC . . . [more]

Slaw is proud to announce that we are collaborating with OnPoint Legal Research Law Corporation so that this Sunday, and one Sunday a month hereafter, we can present their elaborate summary of an important case from the British Columbia, Alberta, or Ontario court of appeal.

OnPoint Legal Research is an online firm that has been offering legal research, analysis and drafting services to Canadian lawyers for more than thirteen years. You can learn more about the firm on their About Us page.

The summaries we will be presenting draw from OnPoint’s newsletters and comprise a full description of the . . . [more]

We're proud to announce that four new lawyers have joined the roster of columnists, who write for Slaw in particular areas.

The EU last week published a draft directive on network security that requires communications operators (including utilities, banks etc) to report threats or attacks on their operations to national security agencies. In the US, President Obama is about to issue an Executive Order on critical infrastructure security that will provide for notices of imminent threats to operators of such operations. (Drafts of the Order have been circulating for months.)

Any word on official Canadian attention to such matters?

Do you know of any legal barriers that would prevent especially state-based operators of information systems (whether ‘critical’ or not) from defending . . . [more]

A private correspondent has suggested to me that call centres that record incoming calls ‘for quality assurance purposes’ often store the recordings offshore, including in the US. The correspondent wondered if there was any concern that the information in the calls might therefore be subject to investigation or copying by US law enforcement under the PATRIOT Act.

Both the Canadian and the Ontario Privacy Commissioners have commented on allegations of special risk of having personal information in the US because of that statute. Neither have supported the concerns. A recent summary of the discussion is found in the Ontario IPC’s . . . [more]

Here’s a question raised on a US legal technology list that seems relevant to Canadian law too.

What’s the duty of care of mobile devices as pertains to patches/updates provided by the vendor and/or provider?

Example:

I bought an Android phone in June 2012, which received an over-the-air OS upgrade in late July to Android 4.0.4. This release was provided to me well after the version was released to the public. Also, since that time, 2 other versions of Android (4.1 and 4.2) have been made available. There are known security vulnerabilities in the 4.0.4 release.

Yet I’ve certainly not

. . . [more]

A US appeals court has reversed an order banning a convicted sex offender from having a Facebook account. Would such an order be made and upheld in Canada? What limits might be possible, and how would they be enforced? For that matter, how could the order itself be enforced? It’s not hard to get a FB account in another name, though it may be contrary to the terms of service to do so.

Could a no-contact order be made for FB use, e.g. not to friend or comment on any FB page relating to or about a designated person?

Meanwhile, . . . [more]

I’m delighted to announce that Karen Dyck has joined Slaw as a regular blogger. Karen is a freelance lawyer based in Manitoba with a keen interest in enhancing access to justice and equality. For the first five years after her call, she carried on a litigation practice in small firms focusing on family law. She has since drawn upon her legal background to work with a number of governmental and non-governmental organizations in a wide range of roles, from investigations and research to program development and writing to management and administration.

Karen tweets as @karendyck and can be found on . . . [more]