Our Privacy and Access to Information Group

With the growth of global commerce, the protection of personal information has become a significant issue. In this climate, striking the right balance between business interests and protecting the interests of individuals with respect to their personal information while complying with increasingly complex rules can be a struggle for those in both the public and private sectors. The Privacy and Access to Information Group at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP (BLG) works with you, as part of your team, to identify effective practices and procedures and manage privacy issues advantageously.

At BLG, our Privacy and Access to Information Group knows the importance of a multidisciplinary team, as privacy and access issues touch on almost every area of your business. As such, our team spans the areas of business, labour and employment, pension and benefits, health, mergers and acquisitions, litigation and intellectual property. We advise clients in a variety of different industries (including hospitals and other health establishments, pharmaceutical companies, financial institutions, information agents, securities dealers, advisers and firms, insurance companies and retailers) on all aspects of privacy compliance and work closely with privacy commissioners in order to best advise our clients. From our sophisticated knowledge of the industry sectors in which you operate to our involvement in the public policy debate on privacy, you can look to BLG to act as your trusted and well-connected advisor.

Like you, BLG believes that nothing less than excellence will do. This commitment to service has resulted in the frequent recognition of many of our legal professionals at home and abroad. Professionals in BLG's Privacy and Access to Information Group were featured in the 2010 edition of Chambers Global – The World's Leading Lawyers and Best Lawyers in Canada© and the 2009 Canadian Legal Lexpert® Directory.

Clients turn to our Privacy and Access to Information Group to help protect their competitive advantage while ensuring regulatory and legal compliance.

Our Services

Members of the BLG Privacy and Access to Information Group have developed expertise in the areas of public-sector and private-sector privacy, both at the provincial and federal levels.

Our Privacy and Access to Information Group provides a full range of services related to privacy and access to information to respond to the challenges faced by our clients with regard to the personal information that they hold in respect of their employees, members and clients, including the following services:

• Advising clients in respect of applicable privacy laws, including their impact on commercial agreements, due diligence as well as purchase and sale agreements.
• Working with clients to help them ensure that their Canadian business operations comply with applicable privacy legislation.
• Providing privacy advice from a labour and employment perspective. This includes advising employers on their obligations in respect of employee files and access thereto, communication of employee information to third parties and the management of employee files in the event of a sale of the employer's business. We also advise on and assist in the preparation of workplace privacy policies, including such specific areas as background checks, biometric identifiers, workplace surveillance and computer monitoring.
• Advising clients on the implementation of contractual privacy protections, most notably when client lists are sold and when clients outsource services to third-party service providers. We also advise clients in respect of the transfer of personal information outside Québec and/or Canada, including to the United States.
• Assisting clients in the design and implementation of privacy policies generally, including website privacy policies, and in drafting consent forms, consent clauses and confidentiality agreements.
• Assisting clients in responding to requests from employees and third parties for access to information held by our clients. We also advise clients when their confidential information, which is held by government bodies, is the subject of a request for access to information by a third party.
• Advising clients on how to best respond to privacy complaints and inquiries as well as privacy breaches.
• Advising clients on the impact of new technology on privacy compliance.
• Advising our health care clients, and other clients who deal with the health industry, on the specific and additional requirements involved in the collection, use and disclosure of personal health information.