Privacy, Confidentiality & the Law

The duty to respect privacy and confidentiality has substantial foundations in law, and is recognized as a basic ethical principle. Because precise application of the TCPS may be influenced by legal norms, researchers and REBs should be aware of relevant federal and provincial laws regarding privacy, data protection and confidentiality.

Privacy, for instance, is considered a basic human right under court rulings on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; it is also explicitly protected in the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. Moreover, a number of privacy or data protections laws address the collection, use and disclosure of identifiable personal information. At the federal level, the Privacy Act and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act illustrate two important pieces of legislation. Similarly, at the provincial level, privacy and data protection legislation may well apply, depending upon the nature of the research. Such legislation may affect access to data collected by government departments, agencies, universities and businesses.