Privacy awareness week

Yesterday was the first day of Privacy Awareness Week in Canada. I haven't seen the commissioners making a visible fuss out of it, but CAPAPA has issued a release:

CAPAPA supports Canadian’s Right to Know
“Privacy IS Your Business”(Calgary, Alberta)

August 26, 2007 – CAPAPA (Canadian Association of Professional Access and Privacy Administrators) is pleased to support international Privacy Awareness Week, August 26th to September 1st, 2007. Privacy Awareness Week, a campaign first initiated by Privacy Victoria (Australia) in 2001, has for the first time gone international.

As Canada’s leading association serving privacy and access professionals, CAPAPA is spearheading the campaign to promote privacy awareness in Canada. “Identity theft and information security breaches are happening more often than ever,” says CAPAPA National Chair Sharon Polsky. “To reverse that trend, Canadians must recognize the importance of protecting their personal information — at home, in the workplace, and in the consumer marketplace.”

Privacy Awareness Week provides an opportunity for individuals to raise questions about privacy legislation and its impact on how individuals conduct their business and personal lives. Privacy Awareness Week spotlights the need for Canadians to recognize their rights and obligations to maintain the privacy of their personal information. The theme for Privacy Awareness Week 2007 is ‘Privacy is your business'.

Know your Rights and Obligations


Canadian organizations, governments, and government agencies are bound by a variety of wide-reaching privacy laws. Ms. Polsky notes that, “As consumers, each of us is responsible to understand what our rights and responsibilities are under those laws.”

CAPAPA is a key source for helping Canadians recognize their privacy rights and responsibilities, and is the privacy advocate’s source for issues such as the passenger name record exchange, emerging RFID CHIP technology, and CAPAPA's Submission to the Senate on proposed changes to Canada’s Election Act.

More information on these and other Canadian privacy issues is at http://www.capapa.org./ For more information on how you can promote Privacy Awareness Week 2007, visit http://www.capapa.org/ or contact CAPAPA at: info@capapa.org.