A man was injured driving a go-kart at a track in Saskatchewan. He sued the owners of the track. The owners moved to dismiss the action because the plaintiff had waived their liability on an electronic form. The plaintiff argued that it was not clear that he had signed the waiver. Held: for the owners.

Quilichini v Wilson’s Greenhouse, 2017 SKQB 10 (CanLII)

The court considered SK’s Electronic Documents and Information Act, which implements the Uniform Electronic Commerce Act. The court properly (in my view) looked at s. 18 of the Act (s. 20 of the Uniform Act) . . . [more]

A U.S. court has ordered a lawyer for a defendant in a defamation action to identify his client. Could this be done in Canada? Is it routine? I know that there is Canadian case law on requiring Internet intermediaries to identify users, for both civil and criminal proceedings. I am not aware that lawyers can be required to do so – but maybe that is just because i am no barrister.

The lawyer claimed attorney-client privilege in refusing to answer. If a lawyer shows up in a court proceeding on behalf of a ‘John Doe’ client, is the identity of . . . [more]

A lot of people now have computers they can talk to and get answers from – Siri, Alexa, Cortona, etc – not to mention interactive talking dolls.

A man in Arkansas was recently charged with murdering another man in his home. The accused person had a number of such devices in his home, including an Echo device made by Amazon. While the device is set up to activate itself when addressed in a particular way, or by name, sometimes they record in other circumstances.

The police have asked Amazon to turn over any recording made during the relevant period. . . . [more]

This article suggests that the Internet of Things could be made more secure if large buyers of interconnected devices put into their procurement specs some fairly simple rules, e.g. *some* security to start with, e.g. an adjustable password, and patchability to respond to known or discovered threats.

Does this sound right to you? Do your clients insist, or even care?

No doubt large-scale one-off procurement contracts deal with security – well, I hope they do – but what about procurements on more of a mass scale?

I heard of a study over three years ago that found a huge proportion . . . [more]

The prevailing legislative standard in Canada for a duty to report a breach of data security (loss of data, compromise, etc) seems to be that there is a real risk of serious harm as a result of the breach.

Have Canadian courts or regulators given useful guidance on when that happens, and what kind of harm is serious and likely? I am especially interested in court rulings, since the threat of litigation can focus the data holder’s mind as much as or even more than a regulator’s order. (Have privacy regulators cracked down on reporting requirements or other useful follow-up . . . [more]

A private correspondent writes: “Have you ever heard of any cases on electronic chattel paper that is subsequently printed out (apparently called “papering out” in the biz) and the printed version being considered as an ‘original’?”

Views? What protections are there in law or in practice to avoid duplication of a record that should be unique, or at least have a single authoritative version?

On what basis is electronic chattel paper issued or used in Canada, if at all? UCC Article 9 makes special provision for it, and negotiable electronic records generally, but Canadian e-commerce law has not followed that, . . . [more]

From time to time governments make law by referring to non-governmental rules. These are often technical matters on which standards are developed by outside experts. For example, a regulation might require manufacturers to comply with a safety standard of the Canadian General Standards Board or the International Standards Organization.

When this happens, should the government have to ensure that the outside standards be accessible to those affected by them? Many standards bodies finance their operation at least in part through the sale of their standards. In other words, access to the text of the standards is not free. Is that . . . [more]

The new “augmented reality” game Pokemon Go has in a few days more downloads than Tindr. Perhaps the age range of the players is wider.

In any event, to augment your reality, the makers (a spinoff from Google) want a LOT of personal information. TechCrunch has the story, or one version of it. Is the reason that the game is not yet available in Canada our privacy laws, notably PIPEDA, which requires (as well as informed consent) that the collection, use and disclosure of PII be reasonable? Can the game maker justify the extent of the information collected by . . . [more]

The Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench has recently held that a party who held relevant electronic records must produce them in native format, rather than in TIFF format, although producing them in native format (in this case, Excel) could take six months’ work and cost $50,000. Alberta and Canadian law were admitted to require that such production be proportional to the stakes in the dispute and not unduly burdensome, but ordering the production in this case was held to satisfy those tests.

Bard v Canadian Natural Resources, 2016 ABQB 267 (CanLII)

This despite a litigation plan that contemplated production . . . [more]

France now has a law against after-hours emails to employees. Does this make sense to you? Could you get your work done on this basis? Is that question your concern, or is it up to the employer to organize your time more effectively?

Can such a law apply to professionals or others who do not punch a clock?

Are the benefits worth the inconvenience … given that the benefits go to the employees and the inconvenience to the employers, to a large extent.

When France legislated its 35-hour week, over 15 years ago, one consequence was that people had a . . . [more]

Major Hollywood studios are suing the makers of a fan-generated short Star Trek film for violation of intellectual property rights, including the film’s use of the Klingon language invented by the creators of Star Trek.

Does the claim about the use of Klingon make any sense? I don’t believe that the claim focuses on substantial use of passages of text from existing screenplays. The characters in the fan film are using their own texts according to the rules of the artificially-created language.

If not copyright, is there some other kind of intellectual property that might be infringed by the use . . . [more]

One reads regularly of the problems courts have in restricting jurors from researching cases in front of them, so that they get only the evidence properly before them and the arguments subject to judicial control.

What of restrictions on lawyers who want to get out-of-court information about jurors, ideally in time to challenge them at the time of their selection, but also to tailor arguments and maybe even appeal results?

A US judge has recently asked for detailed submissions from Oracle and Google as part of their ongoing patent litigation, to say why they should be able to research jurors . . . [more]