In 2017, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada received a complaint claiming that Google violated the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”) by showing outdated, inaccurate, and sensitive information about the complainant when individuals search for his name. He thus sought de-indexing as a remedy.
Google refused, arguing that it was not subject to PIPEDA when processing search queries relating to an individual’s name. PIPEDA applies to organizations which ‘collect, use or disclose’ personal information ‘in the course of commercial activities’ (s. 4[1][a]). Collection, use or disclosure for ‘journalistic, artistic or literary purposes’ are not subject to the federal privacy law (s. 4[2][c]).
As a preliminary matter, the Privacy Commissioner has referred elements of the complaint to the Federal Court, asking whether Google collects, uses, or discloses personal information when indexing pages and displaying results for someone’s name, and whether this is done in the course of commercial activities. Alternatively, whether Google is exempt by virtue of performing these functions for journalistic, artistic, or literary purposes.