A short post for today – a New Jersey woman alleges having been fired for being too attractive (she worked at a lingerie) store. ABC News reports… An interesting concept and interesting law suit. It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out. . . . [more]
In what the London Times describes as a “groundbreaking” decision, the UK High Court last week ordered Facebook to disclose the email and IP addresses and other information of anonymous internet tormentors – “trolls” – who set up a fake profile of a woman using her photograph.
The order must now be served on Facebook in the US. It has declared it will comply with the order.
How easily Nicola Brookes became a target is described by Women’s Views on News. She was labelled a paedophile and drug dealer. (She has since set up a face book page Trolls . . . [more]
Diamond Jubilee talk was nearly inescapable about a week ago, the Queen of Canada has been on throne for 60 years. This got me ta thinkin’ about Canada in 1952 and more specifically (because this is a law blog) about our legal institutions and specifically the Supreme Court of Canada 60 years ago.
In 1952 the SCC was adapting to recent changes as the court and indeed the nation entered a new phase of maturity as appeals to the Privy Council had been abolished in 1949 by 13 Geo IV c 37, whereby the SCC became the final court of . . . [more]
Statistics Canada has published an article in its Juristat publication on Police-reported clearance rates in Canada, 2010.
The article shows that police are solving more crimes than in the past.
Among the highlights:
I’m cheered to share a happy note about Library and Archives Canada. Over the past few weeks I’ve enjoyed browsing posts on a pilot service from LAC: thediscoverblog.com, the Library and Archives Canada Blog. Subject areas vary, as they should, though a few recent posts stand out to me in opening up the world of Canadian government and legal information and research.
This has been a busy week for privacy news.
Anne Cavoukian, the Ontario Privacy Commissioner, released her annual report entitled “2011 Access & Privacy – Ever Vigilant”. Topics discussed in the report include privacy by design, biometrics, mobile devices, lawful access legislation, and open data. From the report:
The theme of my 2011 Annual Report — Ever Vigilant — was chosen in large part because this year Ontarians faced what I consider to be one of the most invasive threats to our privacy and freedom that I have encountered in 25 years of safeguarding citizens’ rights and championing openness and . . . [more]
Raise your hand if you have ever used the interlibrary loan service of a public or educational institution library. Are you sure? This service is fairly transparent and may have included interlibrary borrowing between far flung branches of a regional library system. My little library in the town of Onoway, Alberta – population hovering around 1000 people, offers a library catalogue of nearly 3 milion items. Plenty of these items are shipped using the Library Book Rate, a Canada Post services that has provided a reduced rate for mailing library books since 1939.
In 2008, a Strategic Review of Canada . . . [more]
The UK Supreme Court last week handed down its 5-2 split decision upholding the extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to Sweden, but later the same day the Court issued a “Further Statement” explaining it had granted Assanges’s lawyer 14 days to apply re-open the appeal for further written or oral submissions.
On reviewing the Court’s reasons Assange’s lawyer submitted the decision was made on a ground that was not argued at the hearing.
The question for the Court was whether it should validate the European Arrest Warrant seeking to extradite Assange to Sweden to be questioned concerning . . . [more]
A 41-page internal Department of Justice report obtained by the Canadian Press through a Access to Information Act request shows that the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines (SSAGs) appear to be working well in jurisdictions where they have been adopted.
The SSAGs are not legislation and do not have the force of law. However, courts have strongly endorsed their use, and Prowse J.A. of the Court of Appeal for British Columbia described them in Yemchuk v. Yemchuk as a “useful tool,” but emphasized they were only intended to reflect the current state of the law, and did not consider entitlement.
Larlee . . . [more]
On May 3, 2012, Ontario’s Bill 13, the Accepting Schools Act, 2011 (which I discussed in a previous Slaw blog post), passed second reading and was referred to the Standing Committee on Social Policy. During committee hearings, the government heard loud and clear that it is important that students who want to establish student-led, single-issue groups, like gay-straight alliances in their schools should be supported and allowed to do so. The government also heard that students should be allowed to call these groups specifically “Gay-Straight Alliances” or other similar names. Hence, the committee made several amendments to Bill 13 . . . [more]
Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, appeared yesterday before the House of Commons access to information, privacy and ethics committee.
The Commissioner would like PIPEDA to include stronger penalties for privacy violations as an incentive to comply. PIPEDA currently has no financial sanctions. If a violator does not conform to a decision of the Commissioner, the recourse is for the Commissioner to take it to the Federal court, which has powers to order compliance and grant damages.
In part this seems to be driven by “…the apparent disregard that some of these social media companies have shown for Canadian privacy laws.” . . . [more]
This project has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada | Ce projet a été rendu possible en partie grâce au gouvernement du Canada