PIPEDA's purpose clause contains within it an unresolved tension -- whether one understands the clause to encompass privacy as social value grounded in human rights or whether one understands PIPEDA protection to cover only a right of control over personal information (data protection) is of fundamental importance to the understanding and implementation of the Act.  This paper explores the historical construction of PIPEDA as data control, but argues that a re-viewing of the notion of privacy and a commitment to situating privacy as a social value has the power to transform the existing form of the law into something beyond data protection.

 

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