Canadian Lawyer InHouse

MAY 2016 26 INHOUSE P olice requests for information in a data-heavy world have thrust Canada's telecommunications companies into the front line in the battle for their customers' privacy rights, an expensive venture that is setting new guidelines for authorities and for the phone companies themselves. For corporate legal teams, it's a delicate balancing act. Do they challenge a produc- tion order, angering police or other authori- ties, or do they hand over the information that the police are seeking, risking con- sumer annoyance and a damaged reputa- tion, and perhaps opening the door to even broader requests further down the road? What is the impact of any decision on pub- lic relations and how will customers react? "We've moved beyond mere compliance with the law to a deeper trust relationship with our customers about how we manage and protect their privacy," says Pam Snively, chief data and trust offi cer at Telus Commu- nications. "We've done this out of recogni- tion that in this more complex, data-driven world, the decisions around data have be- come more complex and we have to be a lot more thoughtful about how we use data, how we don't use data, how we secure data, as well as how much data we collect and disclose." Snively's job is a new one for Telus, and she says it was created to refl ect the fi rm's commitment to customer privacy. "We keep the core privacy principles top of mind as we look at all requests from the police or other decisions that we need to make," she says, while stressing that Telus also rec- ognizes its legal obligations to co-operate with the police. The issue came to a head earlier this year ( January), when Telus and Rogers Commu- nications won their joint legal challenge of a far-reaching Peel Police production order that could have forced them to hand over data from perhaps 50,000 cellphone cus- tomers, including names and addresses and BY JANET GUTTSMAN Telcos take a stand on defending consumer rights in the face of demands from law enforcement.

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