I remember sitting in a presentation about privacy complaints from a senior crown corporation official about a year ago. For those of you that aren't Canadian, a crown corporation is a corporation set up by the government to run as a business at arms length from the government. But because it was a crown corporation it was regulated by public sector rules, including the 20 year old Privacy Act, rather than the post millenial PIPEDA for the private sector.

Anway, the point of his presentation is that over the 20 years they had experienced a doubling of complains about every 5 years, with no signs that the rate of increase would slow down. While we are at a much earlier stage in the curve for privacy complaints in the public sector, it's beginning to look like the rate of increase may be faster. Another complaint to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has been launched. According to the online version of the Georgia Straight out of Vancouver, Straight.com: Straight Talk: "A Vancouver man has asked the federal privacy commissioner to investigate the outsourcing of Canada student loans to a U.S.-owned company. Mark O'Meara, founder of the www.canadastudentdebt.ca/ Web site, claimed that as a result of a recent corporate takeover, Nebraska-based Nelnet has access to all federal student debtors' personal information and financial data."

I have to agree with David Fraser who, blogging about this as well, said that it would be easier to blog about who isn't complaining to the privacy commissioner this week.

¶ 3:38 p.m.