Increasingly, ransom attacks – on everything from public infrastructure organizations to healthcare providers – are demonstrating both the economic and political value of data and the vulnerability of public entities. Because they generally hold infinitely more personal, and often highly sensitive, information on people than their private sector counterparts, public entities are an attractive target for such attacks. The loss or internal misuse of sensitive personal information by public entities likewise represents a significant institutional and litigation risk. As a result, such entities are also more exposed to class actions.

Surprisingly little has been written about the personal information protection obligations of public entities and even less about their exposure to class actions. Until now.

A Timely Publication

This new volume, In the Public Eye: Privacy, Personal Information and High Stakes Litigation in the Canadian Public Sector, offers an overview of the rapidly evolving law of privacy and personal information in Canada and provides insight to help public sector entities avoid or mitigate the consequences of high stakes class action litigation.

The expert authors, Shaun E. Finn and Danielle Miller Olofsson, begin by reviewing and comparing the legislative regimes applicable to personal information protection in the public sector – including healthcare – and to class actions. They then examine several governance issues that recent legislation and technology have rendered imperative. This is followed by a discussion of the operational challenges posed by present and emerging technologies that, if not addressed appropriately, can expose public entities to legal action. Finn and Olofsson suggest practical measures to mitigate possible damages in these areas. The book concludes with a review of the concepts of privacy and personal information and a call for a re-examination of how legislators define and protect the information that is intimately linked to an individual's biographical core.

In addition, this timely publication explores some of the more philosophical questions raised by public sector personal information class actions.

Practical Guidance

In the Public Eye: Privacy, Personal Information and High Stakes Litigation in the Canadian Public Sector would be of interest to anyone who would like to stay current with this rapidly evolving area of the law and will be a particularly useful acquisition for civil litigators and public sector employees. It would also be an excellent resource for libraries at law firms, law schools and law societies across Canada.