In the news this week is an interesting investigation by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
The OPC is investigating complaints about the PC Optimum loyalty program. It seems several people have experienced difficulties when attempting to delete their accounts. Instead of being able to do so easily, these individuals reportedly faced numerous obstacles, often leading them to give up and file complaints with the OPC.
The investigation wasn't formally announced by the OPC. The information seems to have been shared with the media by complainants and the OPC was limited in what they could say while investigating.
We will see what the OPC determines once the investigation is concluded, but the timing is interesting. This all comes on the heels of the announcement, about two weeks ago, about privacy regulators' findings during the annual global privacy sweep.
In a press release, Privacy Commissioner of Canada Philippe Dufresne said, "Websites and apps should be designed with privacy in mind. This includes providing privacy-friendly default settings and making privacy information easy to find.”
The OPC stated organizations can help users better protect their privacy online by "emphasizing privacy options, using neutral language, clearly presenting privacy choices, and reducing the number of clicks for a user to find privacy information, log out, or delete an account."
So, if it is indeed the case the famous loyalty program makes it too difficult for users to delete their accounts, it sounds like they may lose a few points in the privacy game. I hope the OPC also takes the opportunity to provide meaningful and practical guidance as to what procedure would meet its standards.
In the annual global privacy sweep, the numbers were staggering — a whopping 97% of websites failed — in terms of how often the OPC believed organizations were failing at implementing privacy by default in the design of their websites and services. What we need now are details and some great examples of the kinds of designs and defaults that would pass the test.
Have a great weekend.
Kris Klein, CIPP/C, CIPM, FIP, is the managing director for Canada at the IAPP.
