COVERSTORY
A CLOAK AND
DAGGER MINDSET
Leveraging the law to stave off spies
With the proliferation of
electronic information coupled with a highly competitive global economy, opportunities for the theft of data — including trade secrets — are rife. Oftentimes
a breach is difficult to detect but easy to execute.
By Daryl-Lynn Carlson A
s executive vice president, corporate and general counsel for TransCanada Pipeline Ltd. in Calgary, Sean McMaster is charged also with overseeing the company's security strategies. It's not a routine re- sponsibility for an in-house lawyer, but in an indus-
try as highly regulated as the transfer of fuel via pipeline, the purview of his role makes sense. Working closely with TransCanada's director of corporate
security Glenn Reierson, McMaster must ensure security is tan- tamount. One of the company's key focuses is protection for executives who travel carrying with them valuable information that can be subject to theft. "It's not something that would normally be on the corporate
counsel side of things but I also am responsible for the security end of things at TransCanada," McMaster says. "It's more important these days than it has been in the past,
but more so from a security and protection perspective than pure espionage, so we do pay attention to it." Although TransCanada has not experienced an incident in
which confidential information has been compromised, Reier- son acknowledges the threat is omnipresent.
C ANADIAN Lawyer INHOUSE JUNE 2008 11
