Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada wrongly collects information from First Nations activist’s personal Facebook page

1. 1Whether information posted on a personal Facebook page constitutes "personal information" under the Privacy Act
2. 2Whether the public availability of personal information on the Internet renders it non-personal
3. 3Whether the collection of personal information from Ms. Blackstock's personal Facebook page was directly related to a government operating program or activity
4. 4Whether the monitoring of Ms. Blackstock's public speeches constituted collection of "personal information" under the Privacy Act
5. 5Whether repeated accessing of Ms. Blackstock's Indian status records was a contravention of the Privacy Act

• Definition of personal information: Publicly available information can be personal
• Collection of personal information: Collection not directly related to program/activity
• Cessation of collection: Recommendation to cease collection accepted
• Destruction of records: Recommendation to destroy information accepted
• Policy development: Recommendation to develop policies accepted

The OPC recommended that both departments stop accessing personal information on Ms. Blackstock’s page and other social media sites unless directly connected to legitimate government business, destroy previously collected personal information without such a connection, and develop internal policies governing social media collection.

• s.4 Privacy Act