Canadian Lawyer

w w w . c a n a d i a n l a w y e r m a g . c o m J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 9 17 gigantic world of clientdom. Just as digital devices have roiled the internal world of lawyers, so they have upended the world of their clients, particularly corporate cli- ents. The biggest impact is on privacy and competition law. In the digital age, privacy is being ignored and destroyed all over the place. Dramatic corporate data breaches are commonplace. In 2013, three billion Yahoo email accounts were compromised (still the biggest data breach of them all). In September 2017, hackers gained access to Equifax, a major American consum- er credit reporting agency, compromis- ing sensitive information for 143 mil- lion American consumers. In September 2018, Facebook discovered an attack on its computer network had exposed the personal information of about 30 mil- lion users. In Canada, major data breaches have affected Ashley Madison (2015), Bell Canada (2018) and Hudson's Bay Com- pany (2018). These examples just scratch the surface: A recent Wikipedia entry lists several hundred private and public data breaches throughout the world since 2005, each involving the theft or compromise of 30,000 or more records. Privacy law, once the province of a handful of specialists, has become hugely important, and platoons of lawyers are scrambling to catch up. But what do they know and what do they have to offer in the new digital age? Privacy issues bleed into competition law. The control of user data by digi- tal giants — and their tendency to mini- mize privacy concerns — leads to abuse of dominant position, particularly in online advertising. In March, Google was fined 1.5 billion Euros by the European Union for just such abuse (the third time Google has been sanctioned by the EU). The fine was based on the EU's 2018 General Data Protection Regulation, which requires that individuals be able to choose how informa- tion about them is used. In April, Facebook announced that it had set aside US$3 bil- lion as a contingency against an expected fine by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for privacy violations in the United States. Lawyers, of course, are quick to offer help with these recent international prob- lems of privacy and competition law. Can they do so legitimately? Do they have the knowledge and experience required to help with new, technically complex, multi- jurisdictional issues? Ethics require that the legal profession do what it has never been very good at — recognize the limits of its knowledge and expertise. Philip Slayton was the dean of law at the University of Western Ontario, a Bay Street lawyer, president of PEN Canada and is now a best-selling author. His latest book, Nothing Left to Lose: Freedom in Canada, is forthcoming. "Ethics require that the legal profession do what it has never been very good at — recognize the limits of its knowledge and expertise." Master the law. Canada's leading law school offers a graduate degree in four unique streams: Business Law Canadian Law in a Global Context Innovation, Law and Technology Law of Leadership Apply today. Visit gpllm.law.utoronto.ca Questions? gpllm@utoronto.ca ntitled-6 1 2018-05-25 11:45 AM

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