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LEGAL REPORT/FORENSICS & CRIMINAL LAW Privacy law a bomb waiting to go off rights and obligations in cyberspace. BY MARK CARDWELL W puters were confined to desktops, cell- phones were the size, shape, and weight of bricks, and fax machines were all the rage in telecommunications. Now likely past the midpoint in a legal career devoted largely to civil, regulatory, and criminal litigation, he marvels at the quantum leaps in technology that have turned small portable devices into per- sonal communication and computing powerhouses. "The eight-ounce phone that people carry around in their pock- ets can create content, send and receive text-based communications, [and] are calendars, phone books, and mailboxes all at the same time, senior partner at Stockwoods LLP and a former Ontario Crown attorney. "I've heard it said — and I like to repeat — that people walk around today with more personal information on their per- son than their parents generated in their entire lifetimes." That's why he and jurists who are " says Hutchison, a deeply interested in the issue of privacy are anxious to see pending federal leg- islation that seeks to both clarify and establish the rights and obligations of people and businesses in regards to per- sonal information in cyberspace. And, as with other recent legislation on the issue and related changes to the Crimi- nal Code, they expect the new provi- sions will be challenged in the courts almost immediately, joining a long list of cases that are helping to sharpen the focus of a fast-growing and wide-ranging national and international legal and ethi- cal debate. 44 M AY 2012 www. CANADIAN Lawyermag.com Introduced in the House of Com- mons in September and expected to be passed into law this spring, bill C-12 — the safeguarding Canadians' person- al information act — proposes several amendments to the Personal Informa- tion Protection and Electronic Docu- ments Act, which has governed and regulated the collection, storage, use, and disclosure of personal information in mostly commercial dealings by busi- ness and government since 2000. A rein- troduction of bill C-29, which made it to second reading before dying on the hen Toronto law- yer Scott Hutchi- son was called to the bar in 1989, personal com- Federal legislation, court challenges helping to determine guidelines of privacy oleg portNoy