section_path: Legal right to privacy/By country/Canada
section_name: Canada
paragraph_text: Canada
  
  Canada is a federal state whose provinces and territories abide by the common law save the province of Quebec whose legal tradition is the civil law. Privacy in Canada was first addressed through the Privacy Act, a 1985 piece of legislation applicable to personal information held by government institutions. The provinces and territories would later follow suit with their own legislation. Generally, the purposes of said legislation are to provide individuals rights to access personal information; to have inaccurate personal information corrected; and to prevent unauthorized collection, use, and disclosure of personal information. In terms of regulating personal information in the private sector, the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act ("PIPEDA") is enforceable in all jurisdictions unless a substantially similar provision has been enacted on the provincial level. However, inter-provincial or international information transfers still engage PIPEDA. PIPEDA has gone through two law overhaul efforts in 2021 and 2023 with the involvement of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and Canadian academics. In the absence of a statutory private right of action absent an OPC investigation, the common law torts of intrusion upon seclusion and public disclosure of private facts, as well as the Civil Code of Quebec may be brought for an infringement or violation of privacy. Privacy is also protected under ss. 7 and 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms which is typically applied in the criminal law context. In Quebec, individuals' privacy is safeguarded by articles 3 and 35 to 41 of the Civil Code of Quebec as well as by s. 5 of the Charter of human rights and freedoms.